How are your photo's stored?

These pictures are from my CTMH up-line and friend, Starr Nelson. Last week her house caught fire and burned almost completely. No one was home at the time, so everyone is safe. Starr had no warning, no chance to grab anything. I hope that these pictures will make you think about your photo's and journaling - even the best insurance can't replace those memories.


When I first heard about Starr's house, I was in shock. I can't imagine losing everything in one night. Most things are replaceable, but we all have a few things that can never be replaced.

Starr was grateful that her family was ok. My sister helped her dig through the ash. On a psoitive note the CTMH albums that were packed close on the shelf weren't completely ruined. Many of the pictures in the albums were salvagable and in decent condition. However, one album was left open on the couch. The heat from the couch fire left nothing from that album.


Keeping her chin up, and being postivie, Starr dug through the ash and was grateful for what she found. Because she has insurance, she can rebuild her house (and maybe plan for her dream scrapbook room this time) However, when she saw the following picture she begain to cry.

This picture was kept on the wall of her living room. It is the ONLY picture she has of her eldest son's 1st Christmas. That year they forgot to get more film ( a mistake we all make) but were able to use the last shot in a role to take that picture. My brother (who is in school for advertising) is going to scan it and see what he can do with photoshop - maybe make the ash look like snow. However, all Starr had to do was scan it into her computer 1 time. Then post the picture on an on-line site (like snap fish or wal-greens) where you can download your photo's no charge. And she wouldn't have almost lost one of her most valuable memories.

What can you do to make sure this doesn't happen to you?

Film pictures: Where do you keep your negatives?

Most of us have them scatter in shoe boxes in storage.

What to do:

Step 1)Take your film to Wal Greens (or other film processing stores) and have all your negatives put on CD. You don't have to do anything fancy your self- just tell the nice sales people what you want.

Step 2) Up load your photos to a photo site (i.e. snapfish.com, walgreens.com)

Digital Camera

Step 1) upload your photo's to a site like snapfish.com or walgreens.com

step 2) while you are at it - put your photo's on 1 other home source - like CD's or an extra hard drive.

Journals:

Step 1) put your journals in a fire proof case/vault

Other option : Scan each page of your journals onto a memory card, or onto your computer - then onto a CD. Then put the CD into the fire proof case.

Sounds like alot of work doesn't it? Every day for 10 minutes save your

photo's or journals this way.

THIS CAN HAPPEN TO YOU!! DON'T REGRET NOT TAKING THESE SIMPLE STEPS!