you guys--help!!

[roxy]

Dear My Friends,

I have a shit ton of negatives--do I keep them or toss them? I mean, like boxes and boxes, not to mention a crap load of blurry pics of people I have no fucking idea who they are, and more blurry pics of events I don't remember.

You guys know everything--what should I do?

signed,
Desperate roxy

Comments

[kira29.livejournal.com]

They do make plastic sheets, to put in notebooks, that are good for storage. I've also seen negative scanners, where you just scan them in and save them on your computer.

[firesign10.livejournal.com]

I definitely vote that stuff you don't recognize/know and blurry ones all go bye bye. I don't know if you want to go through the remaining ones?

[tabaqui]

The pictures - if they're blurry and/or you have no clue, dump 'em. Now, Cat got a negative scanner, and you slot them in and it shows you the picture. Then you can either save it to your harddrive or toss it. If you feel like having a 'project', you can get one and sit and go through the negatives while you watch tv or something, just a handful at a time.

You might find a few gems you *really* want, and then you'll have them stored safely in digital format, ready to share or print. The scanner was really not very expensive, either. He's been scanning in stuff from when Elf was a baby that we only have on 35 mm - it's so awesome to see some of those pictures again!

Good luck!

[rednihilist.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a potential art project. :) I'm with the others--blurry and/or unknown: buh-bye. The others could be interesting, though. . .

[dimeliora.livejournal.com]

I moved recently, and I can tell you a hard lesson I learned: "Fuck nostalgia." Because there's only so many boxes you will lift before you start throwing away childhood memories.

I'd suggest you skip ahead and just cull the extra weight. :)

[redteekal.livejournal.com]

All I can say is GO THROUGH 'EM first. Then chuck out. I reckon you'll probably find some amazing ones that you'll want to develop and the rest you'll bin. But yeah no chucking without looking. That's my rule. I think my problem is that the 'looking' part seems to span whole years. But that's just my procrastinating schtick. Not yours I'm sure :)

[emeraldsedai.livejournal.com]

Sounds like you've already got some good solutions. Me? Not sentimental. I say err on the side of excessive discarding.