Treasure Hunting

For almost a year now, I have had two large boxes of old color slides sitting in my living room from my last trip to visit my dad. Along with the slides came a slide viewing table and a slide projector. One of my scanners has a place to put slides but I haven't been very impressed with the quality. The process of searching through these slides amidst my schedule, along with the cumbersome setup required just to view them, let alone save them to my computer, seemed too much. My eyes are not good enough to use the light table anymore, and setting up the projector and then transferring the one or two slides I want out of the tray and into my computer was too complicated! It was definitely like hunting buried treasure!

For Christmas this year, Emily and Dave got me a slide converter that quickly puts the slides on my computer for viewing and saving. All I have to do is put the slides in the tray and slide it into the little machine that is already hooked to my computer. The slide pops up in live view so I can quickly decide if I want it or not. If I don't, I slide to the next one, and if I do, I save it with one click. In the last week, I have had to fight off the urge to sit down and open "just one more" tray of slides many times a day. Here is one of my favorites, so far.

My grandmother, Frances Dibbens, and Vera Johnson, my mother

This picture was taken on the Royal Gorge Bridge near Canon City, Colorado, about 1952. The reason I like it so much is that it seems so natural and lets me imagine them stepping out of the car on a chilly day to walk along the same bridge I have explored a couple of times since. They are wearing everyday clothes that I might not see in a more formal shot. This occurred approximately three years before I was born.

More treasures to come!