Pairing Photos With the Words (and Printing Them Out) (Module: Handing It Over)
okay so. last lesson was plain documents, phone notes, whatever works, and this one's the natural next step. you've got a page of writing. now what do you do with the shoebox.
because there's always a shoebox. or a folder on somebody's phone, or a dusty envelope from Costco photo printing circa 2004. and at some point you have to decide whether the photos and the words live together or stay strangers.
my opinion: they should live together. a story is good on its own, but a story next to the actual face it's about does something different to a person reading it. it's the difference between hearing about someone and meeting them.
start by matching, not scanning
don't open with the scanner. open with your writing and your photos side by side on the table and just match them up like a puzzle. this memory goes with this picture. this one doesn't have a photo, and that's fine, leave it blank or find a stand-in later.
this is where i have to tell on myself a little.
a while back i was convinced i'd found my handcart ancestor. i'd been chasing this branch of the family for weeks, the ones i have a theory came west from wyoming, and i finally found a name that matched, a county that matched, a date that was close enough. i got so excited i started mentally writing the caption. i had the photo pulled up, i was drafting the sentence under it in my head, something like "believed to have crossed with the handcart company in—"
and then at eleven o'clock that night i looked closer and realized it was a different family entirely. same last name, different county, no relation that i can find. i just sat there for a minute. didn't even feel like closing the laptop right away.
here's why i'm telling you that here, in the photo lesson specifically: it is so, so easy to grab a photo that looks right and slap it next to a story because it fits the vibe. don't do that. if you're not sure a photo is who you think it is, say so right in the caption. "we think this is—" is an honest sentence. a confident wrong caption just becomes somebody else's shoebox mystery in sixty years.
the actual mechanics, low-tech version
you don't need special software for this. i don't have any to recommend even if you wanted it, that's not my strength. here's what actually works:
- scan or photograph the photo first, always, before anything else. even a phone photo of a photo is better than nothing. old prints fade, and yours might be the only copy.
- write the caption plain, under the image, in whatever document you're already using. name, rough date if you have it, and the little detail that makes it a person and not a mugshot. what they're wearing, what's in the background, why someone kept this particular photo instead of tossing it.
- if you don't know who it is, say that. "we think this is grandma's sister, but nobody's sure" is a real caption. it's honest and it's still interesting.
- keep the file names boring and useful. last name, first name, rough year. future-you will thank present-you. i am bad at this in the genealogy-research part of my life, truly bad, records without sources everywhere. don't be like me there. this part's easy enough to just do right the first time.
printing it
a few things about printing that people don't think about until they've already messed it up:
- print at actual size or larger if you can. tiny thumbnail photos in a printed book are hard on older eyes, and older eyes are often exactly who you're printing this for.
- if you're printing at home, know that our dry air up here is rough on paper and ink both. things curl, colors shift a little over time. if this document matters to you, a proper print shop copy is worth the money over a home inkjet.
- don't laminate anything you might want to write on later. i learned this the annoying way.
- if you're printing photos that are precious originals, scan first, always, before you send anything through a machine. machines eat photos sometimes. it happens.
why bother printing at all
because a printed page gets handed to somebody at thanksgiving. a file on your phone does not. i love a shared document as much as the next person, but there's something about someone actually holding the page, turning it over, seeing the photo and the words on the same piece of paper, that a screen just doesn't do the same way.
it also forces you to actually finish something, instead of it living forever in an open tab you mean to get back to. i say this as someone with an etsy shop i have not launched in about two years because i keep being scared it'll land flat. printing something and handing it to a person is scary the same way. do it anyway. the four sentences and the one photo are enough.
Before next time: pick one story you've already written and one photo that goes with it, even if the caption has to say "we think." print just that one page. see how it feels to hold it.