Memories

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, and I have to agree with that sentiment. I also think that nothing jogs the memory like a picture can.

I took this picture in Europe in 1986. It was taken from a boat on the Rhine in Germany. Of course, I was using film in those days, as was everybody else - it was well and truly before the digital revolution. We were still using electric typewriters in the office that I worked in, not word processors. And we were sending faxes, not emails. Prehistoric, hey?

This photo was originally a transparency. Slides were great, because you could show them at many times their 35mm size by projecting them onto a screen. In 1986 I was in a camera club, and the hottest thing around was an audio-visual presentation where you synched two projectors and a tape recorder to show a collection of images to an audience, complete with music and/or commentary, fade-ins and other special effects. Bear in mind that this was even before PowerPoint, let alone some of the sophisticated multi-media software available now.

Anyway, the disadvantage of a collection of transparencies was that one had to set up a projector (usually at night, unless you had blackout curtains) in order to view the images. This was often more trouble than it was worth. Most slides sat around in yellow-topped Kodak boxes for years.

Now those old slides can be digitised so that they can be included in your digital library. I had this slide (and hundreds of others) scanned at a photo finishing store for a few cents per slide. But today's home scanners do a very good job. They are easy to operate and relatively cheap too. Some people I know have bought a scanner and converted all their anologue images to digital, then sold the scanner on eBay. This seems a very smart proposition for anyone with lots of images to convert.

EXIF: No idea!

TFF