A Picture Worth 500KB
- Stephen Stewart
- Sep 8, 2015
- 3 min read
It was just a fishing trip, but to my grandfather you would have thought he was in heaven. Casting a line over a perfectly still lake was his idea of serenity, his happy place of peace. No place gave him more joy than being on the water. Camping, fishing and enjoying the outdoors were as synonymous with him as his date of birth or his blood type. It’s what he loved most apart from his family and his grandkids. He passed in June of 1997. I was 11 years old. My world came crashing down. He taught me how to pick the best worms, to cast a line and to enjoy the quiet that doesn’t come around often in life.
Finding a Way to Preserve Grandfather's Life
It wasn’t until much later that I discovered a way for us to re-live parts of my grandfather’s life. There was one picture in particular that was extra special to all of us. It was the time my grandfather camped at Lake Tahoe; a week-long excursion that would be the highlight of his retirement years. We found the picture which perfectly captured the joy of a man who rarely let his emotions show on his rugged face. We used photo digitizing to capture the image along with several dozen more in a digital format. This was our chance to recreate the past and we were going to be able to do it just in time for the 10-year anniversary of his death -- We knew this photo digitizing project would be such comfort to my grandmother, who still missed him as if he had been gone just a few short hours.
Digitizing Photos Keeps Memories of Grandfather Alive
Enlisting the help of several software programs, I took the digitized photo and begin to restore some of the flaws of the old photograph. With each edit, the picture began to come alive in explicit detail, almost as if I were casting a line beside him. The digitized photo was finally completed just weeks before we were to commemorate his death at the family reunion. I’ll never forget the look on my grandmother’s face when she saw the photo. Tears began streaming down her face and we all joined in as we again lived with the realization of another day without my grandfather with us. That digitized photo gave us a peek into a time when he was at his happiest. For that brief moment, he was there with us in the room as we saw the joy that came in a unique way when he was on the water.
Technology has Provided a Way to Re-live Precious Moments
Photo digitizing helped us re-live a moment and a man that had such a lasting impact in our lives. The same message wouldn’t have been felt as clear without the technological advancements that photo digitizing allows us to have. We are able to tell the stories of my grandfather through the memories frozen in time in each photograph all because photo digitizing allows us to easily share, edit and cycle through those memories of what made him who he was. Photo digitizing allows us to make sure that his life is never forgotten by future generations.
Take Responsibility and Share Your Legacy
Now, it’s me on the water with my children. I show them the right way to gather worms and use the best method of casting a good line over a lake. Each trip brings with it another opportunity for me to share the legacy of a man who lived life through the people he loved and the lines he cast.
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