Scanning Photos

I scanned a lot of historical photos for this project.  Mr. Wayne McCabe was super helpful in letting me come in to his office and scan his collection for hours at a time.  

I used a flat photo bed scanner, and the best method I found was to set four at a time on the scanner, scan the photos, then replace the photos and start again.  While waiting for the next four to upload, I went through the last batch and saved them to a drive, naming them with as much detail as was available.

One of the most important parts of the file naming was including the year.  This was mostly possible because of the inked date stamp on each postcard (because that is mostly what they were), but a postcard may be sent even years after publishing and photographing.  Because of this, most of the dates are mostly guessed a little in the file name.  

 

Inspiration

The inspiration for this project came from a lot of sources, but mostly from my own research of m family’s history.  My family, for many generations on some lines, comes from Sussex County.  I discovered the rich history of the County through that and wanted the people around me to also see how amazing, historic, and beautiful this place is.  I wanted others to feel the pride that I did in being from Sussex County.  

So, amazingly, I met Mr. McCabe, a local historian who was willing to share his photos with me to digitize and share with others.  

That is where this journey begins…