An undiscovered gem has been found. My sister Linda lived in North Dakota for a while. This photo, taken in the Fall of 1974, is the back yard of her farm.

After a week of scanning, we've digitized 500 B&W negatives, one color negative and 150 color slides. That leaves only 15, 349 to go.

The B&W negatives scan much faster than color. The film scanner will scan up to 6 negatives at a time, and after rotating, cropping and image adjustment, we're getting about 24 to 30 digitized negatives an hour.

The color slides are much slower. We're only getting about 5 slides scanned in an hour. 

The one color negative was a test, which showed me that the color negatives will take the longest to digitize.

It looks like this project will keep me busy for a long, long time.

NOTE: If you have any kind of archive, be sure to document your collection. Record dates, descriptions and any pertinent information. I have so many negatives that can only be dated by identifying the event captured. That's fine for things like birthdays and concerts, but abstract imagery, such as Woodscape at Full Moon, has no visual date clue.

I do not remember when or where this was taken. (There's a faint whisper of college or Iowa City, but that is an eight year stretch.) There is a date on the slide mount - Oct. '79 -(right before I moved to New York City)- but this is a duplicate slide, so I still have no record of when the original was taken. Where is the original image the duplicate was made from?

Where's the negative for Max, Lee and Child? I've got an 8x10 print, but I'd love to find that negative to scan. I found the roll of negatives that picture was from, but the strip with images 23 to 28 is missing.

As I page through the negatives for remembered images, I find empty slots. I'm sure I took the good negative to the lab to make prints, and then never put them back. As I prospect through the image files, I hope to stumble upon the fabled mother-load of missing negatives and slides.

The next interface we need for the computer is direct brain to computer connection. (Wireless, of course.) No, better yet - A Computer in Your Head! 

You are showering after a long day, and you sink into the warm relaxation - and doesn't this always happen in the shower - you conceive of the best solution for your project. (perhaps a Photo Blog.)  

     "I'll do this, and the site will do that. Hurray!"

But post shower, at your computer, you struggle to capture that moment of brilliance.

    "Wait, this isn't how I pictured it. Something is missing!"

Now your Brain Computer ((c)2014 Apple Inc.) can take your thought's, words and visualizations, and do the modifications directly to your blog, and you will have the most amazing photo blog ever. (And finally get those problematic landscape thumbnails formated correctly.)

Just connect your brain to the internet to see if the update works.
    "Hurray, it's perfect!"

I'm currently researching the possible problems that the human subconscious may create, especially while sleeping. Oh the Horror! No, wait, that could be interesting.

Note: study Forbidden Planet, 1956 for unexpected influence of subconscious mind.
Subnote: also see WALL*E, 2008 for other possible side effects.

(Or as Jay would say, "How lazy are we getting....")

So I'm ignoring the design problems for now and documenting this archive project come Hell or high web-fees. Check HERE for more photo scans.

I've picked up the equipment I need, and Sara Cooper, my assistant, has begun scanning. (Nikon Super Coolscan 5000 ED Film Scanner and 2 2 terrabyte Western Digital NAS drives for storage and backup.)

We started with color slides, and quickly found that 4000 dpi captures too much information. Clean slides suddenly become encrusted with dust and hairs. 3000 dpi captures the image nicely and looks past the flaws.

Here are a few of the first images.

Silenced Sign

Twin Towers Sunset

Lawnscape

Vent Migration

Puddles