fifteen minutes til family fame

Last week, we were pulling together images for Cheryl’s funeral. Robbie, my dad and I discussed ideas about putting together a slide show on Thursday morning at the funeral home. But once we finished a delicious, but carb-heavy lunch, the likelihood of completing a slide show began to fade. Stacks of photos came out. We all laughed at Brandi’s expansive bangs on such a teeny child. There was one photo album that was really old. My dad requested that I make pictures of all of the pictures for him. I had taken photos of some albums at Bettye and Richard’s anniversary and used them on a previous blog post about Cheryl. They weren’t the best quality, but they were what I could find in my computer files.

The weather was beautiful so I took the photo album outside onto the deck. I have had a lot of issues with indoor lighting using my digital camera. I am never as happy with my photographs as when I can take pictures outside without the aid of a flash. I then got close up to all of the pictures in the photo album. Many of them were blurry, but Dad wanted copies of the pictures anyway. I had some issues with some glare on the photos. And the reflection does show a green cast from the tree leaves above my head. But basically, I held still and went through the album taking a picture of each photograph. Before I knew it, I had taken over 80 pictures in about a twenty minute period. Dad downloaded the photos to his camera and the computer automatically created a slideshow. It was like magic! No need to scan all of the images individually, crop, save, resize – all of the countless steps that make such a task arduous.

These two pictures show how I just held the camera closer to the what I wanted out of the picture – my dad and Cheryl hugging.

You can see how this shot of Cheryl and Wallace Rutledge was taken with the edge showing and on a bit of an angle.

Plus there is nothing that you can do about your original shot being blurry, as seen in this photo of my grandfather’s sunburned back.

But when the slideshow started, a lot of the messy edges were lost. What is known as the Ken Burn’s effect in iPhoto results in a movement across the photo on the frame. What seemed like an impossible task, all of a sudden becomes quite simple. Isn’t it amazing how much technology we have at our fingertips? So next time you see some great photos, don’t ask to borrow them to later scan. Quickly and quietly get to snapping. As long as you hold steady, you’re golden. Now you have family memories that you can share with the world, as seen here.

I am going to try to do this with my wedding photos. It has only been five years in less than two weeks! Yikes, but this discovery is a huge relief.