To celebrate International Save Your Photos Day 2014, Pixologie committed to an audacious goal of scanning 100,000 photos in the run-up to Saturday, September 27. Here’s what we actually achieved:
- 61,000 photos scanned with our Kodak Picture Saver high speed scanners and preserved for over twenty individuals and families
- Another 50,000 approximately on our docket to be scanned throughout October for an additional six families
Lessons Learned
With our Save Your Photos Day goal and event, our clients felt a call to action. Most of our clients want to get their photos organized, but many needed that extra motivation to start. With the extra attention to saving photos, people understood that flooding, tornados, hard drive crashes, etc. are a real threat to their family memories. The devastation of losing photos in a disaster or to time was more apparent because of this special day.
However, we found that our clients had been waiting for the day to be organized before bringing their photos in for scanning services. Our goal was impacted by the fact that we had to physically remove most of the photos from the albums brought in. We did not just want numbers, we wanted our clients to have a usable digital archive of their photos.
Here’s a story of a great couple whom we’ve known for over three years and who have not been ready to get their photos out of a chaotic situation in their closet.
Over 50 Years of Memories Too Overwhelming to Even Look At
Stephen and Mary had fifty-five diverse photo albums, all different sizes, types and levels of deterioration along with hundreds of photo envelopes – overloading the shelves in their bedroom closet and never brought out to be shared. Even though most of the photos were in albums, the memories spanned over 50 years of marriage and were so overwhelming that the escapades of their eight children growing up, celebrations, travel around the world, and their annual mission work were hidden away. We picked up their photo album collection, took out all the photos from the albums and scanned the pictures.
After the scanning process, we tagged their digital files with relevant keywords so they could search their photos for events and important topics. We will return their photos in elegant Legacy Boxes along with DVDs of their photos.
Our next steps are to help them create digital photo books by picking out the best of their photos on topics such as their mission work with an orphanage in Honduras which spans many years and their family “yearbook” featuring and celebrating their traditions and faith.
Because of Save Your Photos Day and the relationship we had developed with them over the years, Stephen and Mary have taken their photos out of their closet and are bringing their memories and stories back into life to be celebrated and shared.
Consider Scanning a First Step to Getting Your Photos Organized
As mentioned before, we found that many of our SYPD clients were waiting until they organized their photos to bring them in for scanning. Unfortunately, that day doesn’t usually come when you have time to organize your photos, and instead, you are rushing around creating further photo chaos trying to find needed pictures for a special event.
Some Ways We Can Help
- Bring your albums and boxes of photos to Pixologie for Open Studio Time. We’ll get you started on preparing your photos for scanning.
- Have a lot of photos to scan? Consider renting our Kodak PS50 to scan your photos at home. It comes with a laptop, so scanning is super easy and super fast at up to 50 photos per minute.
- Still too overwhelmed? Give us a call. We’d be happy to talk with you and help you make a plan to get your photos out of chaos and back into life to be celebrated and shared!
In the end, we were humbled that our clients embraced our goal for Save Your Photos Day and feel so blessed to be a part of making sure their stories were recovered, shared and preserved!
Please feel free to contact us with any questions!
Email: mollieandann@pixologieinc.com
Telephone: 414-690-0791
About the Save Your Photos Alliance Pixologie is a member of the Save Your Photos Alliance, a group committed to being the world’s premier organization for the SAFEGUARDING, RECOVERING, RESTORING, and REUNITING of photos and treasured memorabilia before and after disasters occur.
Learn more about the Alliance at: www.saveyourphotos.org
Learn more about the National Disaster Photo Rescue organization: http://nationaldisasterphotorescue.org/
What a great success story. I’m sure that Stephen and Mary are thrilled. Thank you for saving our photos!!
It was a lot of fun! Thanks Tiffany!