We have now scanned and uploaded the first reel of my Dad's Bolivia Photos to the store. I am still working on streamlining the process. Now that we almost finished moving in to our new place and with the holiday season coming, I should find the time.

One day I went through my Dad's attic and ran across his collection of several thousand slides from years of business travel. I still remember vividly how he used to give presentations in my school, captivating my classmates with his stories. Back in his days, business travel used to be a real adventure. Our country was poor and travel restricted. Sometimes reaching a destination for him consisted of a week of hair-raising journeys, making for first-rate stories. Now his slides were collecting dust and fading away in the depth of time, eaten by acids and humidity.

Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, we can now preserve his photos. Last year I purchased a Nikon Coolscan Slide Scanner , hoping he would be able to digitize his work. It turns out that the computer needed an upgrade as well. When I visited my parents this year, we worked on the scanning process a bit, but I will still have to put together a computer system.

Being separated by almost 10,000 miles does not make things easier for us, but we finally managed to scan some test cases. Eventually my Dad will have the tedious task of scanning a load of slides, while I just need to run some Photoshop actions on them, or so I thought. It turns out, that most pictures will need some individual attention as well, to fix some blemishes caused by the ravages of time.

I am looking forward to digitizing his photos and going on a journey through time, comparing the old and the new. I will visit some of the places and compare photographs. This should be a fun project.

You can find some of his Bolivia Slides in my Store. (Smugmug offers me unlimited storage)