5 JANUARY 2025
I’ve just scanned all the content from my childhood family photo albums. They’re out of order, undated and unlabelled. What astonishes me the most is the apparent lack of original curating. I’m sure we must have binned some, but it’s almost as if any photo, no matter how poorly taken, poorly developed, boring or bad in any other way, had to go in the albums. Digitising was my opportunity to expunge the dross but instead, I’ve scanned every last terrible, pointless and context-free photo. Even the occasional leaflet, postcard or newspaper cutting. I’ve also scanned the bewildering and bile-inducing portrait photo of Margaret Thatcher that my dad must have contacted 10 Downing Street for in the 1980s. There have been about 450 photos.
In most cases, the years and chemicals in the paper have not been kind so I’ll colour and exposure correct a lot of them. Then I’ll put them in my hard drive folder of over 87,000 other photos I’ll probably never look at again. Of course, I have no children or other family that these would be of future relevance or interest to.
There were some interesting photos, but here are some of the worst examples.