Upper St. Clair Township Library to host Save Your Photos Fair
If a picture is worth a thousand words, a great many people have virtual libraries in their homes, hidden in boxes and on memory cards, flash drives and computers.
If the thought of organizing your photos is overwhelming, Upper St. Clair Township Library is hosting a Save Your Photos Photography Fair from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Sept. 27. The educational event focuses on collecting, preserving and displaying photos, as well as giving those who attend an opportunity to speak with professionals.
Experts in permanent photo storage, photography, and framing and matting will be on hand to answer questions and give advice.
Lisa Webster of Grand Scale Video Productions will explain how to preserve memories through photo scanning, archiving, photo books, slide-shows, and permanent cloud-based storage.
Debbie Beraducci Kim ofForever.com will review options for saving digital photos in Forever’s permanent cloud storage. She can also create a free account for those who choose that option.
Michael Good, master photographer and certified professional photographer from Photographic Trends, will share his extensive knowledge of photography.
Jim Uhrig of FastFrame will demonstrate various options in framing and matting your photos.
In addition, Barb Conner, conservation services manager from the Museum Conservation Center at Heinz History Center, will present an introduction to photo conservation at 7:30 p.m.
“The Save Your Photos event is a fantastic opportunity for everyone to go through those boxes of old photographs and get digital copies made for free,” library director Helen Palascak said. “We are very excited to bring such a talented group of professionals together to help us use, share and connect with our precious memories.”
Webster has been instrumental in organizing the Save Your Photos event. September is International Save Your Photos Month, a topic that has personal meaning to her. When she was young, her family lost all their personal photos in a flood.
“You think nothing is going to happen to your photos,” said Webster, adding that while most items can be replaced after a fire, flood, or other catastrophic event, photos are almost always irreplaceable.
As people move from outdoor to indoor activities in the fall, Webster said this is a great time of year to tackle a project like organizing family photos.
She said the first step is to get your photos out of storage and start organizing them. Webster uses an “A, B, C” method to decide what to do each picture.
For example, an “A” photo belongs in an album. Those are the photos that cover major milestones and life events, the photos that you would never want to lose. It might not be a great photo, but if it’s the only photo you have of a family member, it would be a photo that belongs in the “A” group. Those are also the photos you may want to back up to cloud based storage.
Webster said that “B” photos can be stored in legacy box by theme, such as vacation or birthdays. Those photos that have meaning but aren’t as important as the “A” photos.
Photos in the “C” category are the ones that should be “canned,” according to Webster. That category includes blurry photos and duplicates.
Webster acknowledges that it can be difficult for some people to say, “I only need one copy of that photo” and move on.
Webster said that taking time to organize and save your most precious photos is worth the effort.
“It provides peace of mind,” she said, “and is a loving, living, testament of life.”
Please note, only the first 25 registered guests can have their photos scanned during the event, and one set of photos per family.