While growing up, my dad was always the guy with the SLR or the Super-8 camera. Actually he still takes the most pictures at present.
As a result, we have volumes of photo albums, boxes of 35mm slides and a couple hours of grainy color film footage, luckily transferred to VHS back in the 80's before it disintegrated.
Around 1994 I took the opportunity to follow in Pop's footsteps, and start archiving every major and minor family event. When I met my wife a year later, I was pleased to learn that my future father-in-law had also developed a lifetime collection of media.
Acquisition
Starting around December 1994, I had a video camera in one hand, and a stills camera in the other. These days you can shoot both with one unit, such as a D90 or D5 Mark 2 (in my dreams) or more likely a digicam and a camcorder. Lately I have been choosing one or the other. For example, in 2005 when the Christmas Pudding nearly burned the house down from too much rum and a backdraft situation, I got that on DV tape. Then I shot stills in '06 and then HDV in '07, and back to stills in '08.
Most of what I remember is based upon my view through the viewfinder. This is my general appearance at a family gathering.
I have to say, the Sony Hi8 camera I bought in 1998 was extremely durable. Old faithful!
They don't make 'em like that anymore.
Distribution
From 1994 to about 2001, the best way to distribute new pictures or video was via US Mail. Certainly Grandma didn't have access to e-mail until 2005, but given slow internet speeds in the late 20th century, prints and videotapes fit the bill.
Around 2002 I secretly borrowed Dad's 35mm slides and scanned about 50% of them and gave him 3 CD-ROM discs complete with HTML photo galleries for Father's Day. Secrecy is an important part of these projects.
From about 2004 to 2008 I was making DVD compilations of the classic family films and the new events. In 2005, in honor of Grandma and Grandpa's 60th Wedding Anniversary the tour de force of family DVDs was released, featuring the best productions and film clips going all the way back to about 1974.
Back in the day, people liked being on film. These days I get a lot of shots of people covering their faces.
Now, as time rolls on and inevitable milestones that we do not look forward to have transpired, we luckily have these memories for posterity. However one must keep track of everything, and let me tell you, stuff is everywhere.
I have had numerous home computers since 1994. I make sure to back up data before retiring a PC, however there are still multiple hard drives and stacks of CD and DVD discs, not to mention boxes of photos and Hi8 tapes.
Social Networking
The evolution of social networking for family members has gone from telephone to letter writing to e-mail to limited website linking to today's best-so-far solution, Facebook.
Telephone was of course limited to voice. It was great telling someone about a trip or event, but without visuals.
Back in the early 80's when long distance was still expensive, we had a system. One ring, call Franny. Two rings, call Rita. Three or more rings, ok to pickup - could be grandma. I think we invented Caller ID!
Then of course was the signaling system. Used after a long car ride, such as from Massachusetts back to Iowa. Hit 0 for operator, and place a collect call to Buster, the dog. When Grandma said Buster wasn't available (in reality, Buster had died years ago), we would say "Operator, just tell them to tell Buster that we arrived safely" knowing that Grandma could hear us say this. This was a way to avoid paying for a 1 minute phone call. Sorry Ma Bell - you've been punk'd.
Letter writing was never much of an enjoyable activity, aside from post-cards and the odd thank you note.
Jump ahead to e-mail. With 28.8k modems, sending more than one photo at a time was out of the question, and files had better of been under 100k. This continued until AOL started allowing multiple attachments. Then came broadband, around the same time as free web photo galleries. So photo sharing became easier. However this still involved multiple websites to juggle. Still not great or easy.
Finally social networking sites were invented. I admit I hesitated before accepting my Dad's friend invite. But now that I have, along with cousins and relatives who I have never even met, it's truly one big happy family. Now one can post a picture or video, and without any effort or stamps, everyone can see it, and if they desire, comment or pass it along to their own group of friends. Brilliant.
What I am getting at, is there is now - finally after all this time - an easy way to share your memories with a large disparate group of people.
Looking Ahead
So this week I started compiling my treasures, 1994-present, not only into a more organized offline fashion, but also bit by bit into my online family network. While it gives me joy to watch my Grandpa Morris talk about working in the shipyards during WWII or how he was arrested for selling hot dogs on Coney Island, it gives me even greater joy to share that video with my uncle, who had never seen video of his father, and with my mom, dad, brother any extended family. It's not that I did not have the ability or inclination to send my uncle a copy of this video in the past, it is just so easy now that we are all connected and communicating on a daily basis.
Last week I did a Skype video chat with my mom and dad in Florida. Now that is something all of my grandparents would have loved to see. But, you are thankful for the memories you have, knowing that you are always creating new memories for the future.
Thanks for reading. Now go get those shoeboxes from the attic and get scanning!
Mike Cohen
Posted by: Mike Cohen on Jul 29, 2009 at 4:50:48 pm
I admit it. I spend a lot of time on the internet.
All day it is available, though we need our bandwidth at work for uploading stuff to our client server, but at home all bets are off.
So what do I do with all this free wifi? Do I read wikipedia on the porch, sipping a mojito with the sun on my face?
Hardly. I sit in my pleather desk chair staring at my 24" HD computer monitor. Nothing like a change of pace from the office!
(speaking of leather-like materials, when I first got out of college, I found a cool bachelor pad in Naugatuck, CT. Naugatuck was made famous as the home of United States Rubber, later known as Uniroyal. As you have probably guessed, everyone's favorite fashion accessory, Naugahyde, was created there. In fact my apartment was just off of Rubber Ave. Oddly, there were a number of adult bookstores also located on Rubber Ave. I'm sure this was just a coincidence!
Another interesting note about Naugatuck was the presence of the Peter Paul factory. Up until 2007, the official town slogan was "Some times you feel like a nut, 'mounds don't" I never liked that expression.)
Ok, back to our story.
So I sit, and I stare and my eyes go fuzzy. Occasionally I find the unexpected surprise.
You can see the International Space Station zip by at a gajillion miles per hour on a clear night. I dutifully went outside with my binoculars, let my eyes adjust, looked 13 degrees past North and lo and behold I saw a twinkling light moving West. Then I realized this was dust on my eyeglasses. I really need to clean those more often. Then, all of a sudden, moving faster than any airplane. In the binos it was a slightly larger twinkle of light, but I know it was the station given its high rate of speed and the multi-colored world flags flapping behind it.
Speaking of the Space Shuttle, when I was in 4th grade we took our first non-Disney trip to Florida. This was the early 80's so a Space Shuttle launch was still a pretty big deal. We went to the beach, moved closer to someone who had a radio (people used to bring boom boxes to the beach) and listened to the countdown. I should mention we were in Deerfield Beach, about 200 miles south of the Cape. People were pointing in every direction at all the wrong things, when suddenly we saw the faint streak of smoke as Columbia moved up and out over the Atlantic. I dutifully snapped a picture with my 110 instamatic camera. The negative for one picture is about the size of the fingernail on your ring finger, so when we picked up our prints from Fox Photo in the Valley West Mall, all you could see was blue sky and beach. Oh well, I remember being there anyway.)
Speaking of the Space Shuttle (again) - years later while visiting one of the Orlando area attractions, I saw the Columbia launch again - this time, I'm afraid, on its final journey. Luckily I had since upgraded my 110 Instamatic to digital.
Another fascinating web diversion is the various mapping services. Satellite maps and streetview is cool, especially for planning a driving expedition in a strange city (like Naugatuck). I have discussed this before in my travel related blogs.
Here's a little video I made when Streetview was first released:
Google Earth is even cooler. I like going to, say, Disney World, where there is a full 3D version of the theme parks actually created by Disney. You can't go on the rides, but there are enough home videos on the webs if you desire a trip through Mister Toad's Wild Ride. And you save yourself $150!
The Live Maps is pretty cool also. My favorite activity is checking out all the houses I have lived in. Apologies to the current residents.
My formative years in West Des Moines. Malls. Highways. TGI Fridays. Life was good. We had previously lived in a sleepy little town in Western Massachusetts which, at the time, had no highways, no mall and a once famous restaurant called the Busy Bee.
This 2nd film is by Dr Blalock. If surgeons are Hollywood directors, he was Cecil B DeMille. Check out the movie "Something the Lord Made" for more.
Lucky for me I get to work with modern day equivalents - the Scorsese, Spielberg, DePalma, Kubrick and Fincher of surgery.
Back to our tour:
Board Room
Snack and Coffee Station
Lunch Room
Production Dept
Home Base
So, this concludes our tour of my childhood homes, a historic glimpse at the rubber and almond candy industries and of course the medical education headquarters. Please visit the gift shop on your way out and come back and see us soon.
Oh, and I nearly forgot - thanks for reading.
Mike Cohen
Posted by: Mike Cohen on Jul 10, 2009 at 8:32:40 pm
I have a passion for my job, which entails training for medical professionals such as surgeons, nurses and administrators, not to mention various industries.
Technology is great, but know how is what pays the bills.
Years ago I canceled my Media 100 support contract upon discovering what a treasure trove of helpful advice can be found on the Creative COW website. I am proud to be a part of this fantastic community.
Follow me on Twitter: videoeditormike
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