Part of keeping discs playable, in good shape and happy is to store 
them correctly. Store discs upright (book style) in original disc cases. Return discs to their disc case immediately after use. Store in a cool, dry, dark, clean-air environment — relative humidity should be 20% – 50% and temperature 4 – 20 degrees C. If you are in Colorado where the Leave A Legacy studios are located you are in luck…humidity is not a problem here.
This is part of a series of articles about writing your life story to see past installments check out our blog or past newsletters on our website www.LeaveALegacyToday.com. Last month we talked about why it’s a great idea to write your life story. This month we will start getting organized. Make separated pages in a word document or in a spiral notebook with a different category listed at the top.
These titled pages are for you to write down ideas and thoughts that you need to cover. It’s a book to jog your memories. If you think of something that you should tell about just write a little note about it. For example: on the Grandparents page I wrote “tell about when Grandpa lived with us”.
So have some fun getting organized and jogging your memory!
Categories to Write About:
Birth
Toys & First Memories
Parents, Grandparents and Great Grandparents
Brothers and Sisters
Other Relatives (aunts, nieces, cousins, etc)
Schools Attended
Holidays; Birthdays
Failure & Hope
Illnesses & Remedies
Religion
Property
Hardship & Survival
Your Children
Jobs
Politics
Influence of War
Influence of Art (books, music, movies, etc.)
Turning Points Inventions
Hobbies; Marriage
Pets
Important Dates in History
Accomplishments
Fashions
Games & Sports
Talents
Famous People
Relationships (romantic, family, friends)
Faith & Spirit
Influential People
Family Traditions
Gifts
Special Moments
Your Special Page
Food
Your Life Today
Your Plans for the Future
Death
Courtship
Brief Encounters
Lessons Learned
Vacations
Dad with baby Marsha
More about the “Why” of Marsha and Leave A Legacy. My Dad, Richard Washnok, is represented in our log by the large star. He was an entrepreneur as well. For most of my growing up years he was a self employed corn breeder. He was an independent man and independent thinker. I worked for him every summer once he went out on his own. I learned the expectation of hard work and doing it well.
I developed an entrepreneur mindset from him. The acorn didn’t fall far from the tree and I started out my career as an independent corn breeder as well. I’ll tell how I got here from there another day. So I have never had a “regular” job where I worked for someone else. When I stopped breeding corn I had to create a business of my own because I certainly wasn’t going to go to work for
someone else in a 9-5 job. That’s a piece of why I started Leave A Legacy.
My father created an expectation of excellence (if one received a C in schoolthat was considered average and average equals failing to my father). I always looked up to my father and wanted to be just like him. He was very fast in his work and I did everything I could to be just as fast. My father always had a big heart when concerned for others. I think I have an even bigger heart as I can get so sappy with clients who are reminiscing, I get drawn into the stories they tell me from their life, and am drawn to tears when working on a memorial DVD slideshow for someone I’ve never met. I guess he left a pretty good Legacy himself. Thanks Dad for instilling those qualities in me and thanks for watching over me these last 7 years!
I thought I’d document a bit of why we are in the Leave A Legacy business, serving Fort Collins, Northern Colorado, Denver Metro area and around the world for that matter.
My memory has always been poor. While others can remember which grade they learned long division in or cursive handwriting, I am lucky to remember where I left my cell phone. I just don’t have many memories from my
Marsha
childhood. I must have been present during the events of my life but I just didn’t stick in my noggin. That is part of the reason why I began Leave A Legacy. Our memories and our lives are so fleeting. We want to be the place to help you preserve your memories with digital creations (wow, that’s actually our tag line!). We may not have done anything remarkable that will go down in history but I want to encourage everyone to preserve the memories and experiences of their lives. Many of the projects we get are the transferring of analog memories to digital media. All of those video tapes, films, audio recordings, slides and photos….they all contain pieces of our lives that ought to be preserved for later generations. All of us have a story to tell. All of us want to be remembered for more than just our birth and death dates and where we lived. Why Leave A Legacy? Because everyone has a story to tell even if it’s just that your brother once chased you around the house with the scissors to cut your hair off….
This segment is for giving you ideas on how to preserve your family memories. Many times it is our family history or our parent’s and grandparent’s stories that we want to preserve. Some clients have brought in birth records, marriage certificates, death notices and news articles that document their family history. Ancestory.com is also a useful resource that many clients have used to find historical family records. One client recently found a ship manifest there listing some relatives who came to America. We have special scanners to carefully handle your oversized and delicate documents. Once we have a digital image we can create a book, DVD slideshow or more….we are limited only by your imagination!
I’m going to start a new series of articles about writing your life story. At Leave A Legacy our mission is to assist people in preserving their photos and
memories digitally. I believe that everyone has a story to tell, a story to preserve. You may not have invented something or made a big discovery. You may not feel as though you’ve done anything important. But I want to encourage you to write about your everyday life memories. Why, you may ask? Our memories are fleeting and time passes all too quickly. When my children were young I wrote a nightly journal about our kid’s activities and that was priceless. They did the cutest and funniest things and I have much of it documented. What I’m talking about here is looking back to all the events of your life. Each month there will be an idea to work on. I’ll encourage you to comment back and let me know your thoughts, experience and progress.
Leave A Legacy is growing up! This October, our Fort Collins store celebrates 5 years of preserving memories! AND our new Denver store celebrates one year! Wow – I can’t believe we’re growing up so fast…
So…to celebrate our own upcoming anniversary, we’ve decided to share some of our gift and celebration ideas for anyone out there celebrating an anniversary of their own!
Gift Ideas
1st Anniversary – Make a photobook of your first year together. Or if you’re a photo-taking junkie and wouldn’t dream of fitting the entire first year into one book, make a photobook or DVD slideshow of your wedding and/or honeymoon!
5th Anniversary – Beginning to tire of spending lots of money on anniversary gifts? Inexpensively create a custom gift such as a champagne bottle label. Enjoy yourselves and your personalized bottle while sipping the bubbly. Include your favorite photo together and a heartfelt message expressing your love for one another.
Celebration Ideas
Newlyweds – Start a tradition. Look through your favorite photos and pick one at a meaningful location. Visit this place yearly and document your visit with a photo in the same place and position each year.
Seasoned Spouses – Get out of your daily routine of chores and evening television and stay at a romantic Bed & Breakfast. Let someone else do the cooking and cleaning for you and just relax. Bring along some home videos and scrapbooks to relive your favorite memories together.
We’re all aware that technology is changing how we live our everyday lives. Laptops, Digital Cameras, Smartphones – these once-novel tools are becoming day-to-day necessities. I realize the iPad is no longer shockingly novel either but this tool has combined the three most frequently used pieces of technology into one supertool. Its capabilities are seemingly endless and new applications are created daily. Now I know what all you skeptics are saying – it’s just a glorified iPhone with maybe a few more apps. But look again – the iPad may be transforming the art of photography.
Built-in Benefits
Not only is the iPad an image processing platform that is light and compact enough to carry with you wherever you go, it contains hundreds of apps to assist in your photography endeavors. With a 9.7” Backlit display, photos look fabulous – unlike the quality that some Smartphones deliver. The iPad also allows you to manage all your online photo libraries from one place without searching for a wi-fi connection or turning on your computer. Additionally, you can download images directly from your digital camera or SD card (or any other photo-taking device) onto your iPad with the the iPad Connection Kit. Other adapters can be used to connect the iPad directly to TVs, computers, and projectors.
Beyond connecting and organizing, the iPad offers several Apps for photo editing and imaging viewing that allow you to do several things with your photos from one platform. Here are a few of the favorites:
Editing/Organizing Apps:
While there are too many photo editing apps to name, I will describe a few of the most common:
Adobe Photoshop Express: Probably the most popular editing App because it resembles the layout of Adobe Photoshop with which most photographers are familiar. However, this is best used for small edits.
Photogene for iPad: For more complex projects, many users like Photogene. This App has all the expected capabilities (crop, straighten, sharpen, resize, add effects, etc.), while additionally allowing you to output you edited photos directly to your e-mail, Twitter, Facebook, and iPad photo library.
Photosmith App: A new App that allows you to review images and organize them into collections and add data, rate and share each image.
More Cool Stuff
For Professional Photographers:
iPad Portfolio: Most professional photographers with an iPad have discovered its incredible capabilities as a professional portfolio. Easy to maneuver with great viewing quality, the iPad has become a portable portfolio that photographers can display at a moment’s notice.
Photo Releases: Two different Apps provide both Model and Property release forms that you can substitute for those outdated paper forms. Easy Release is a generic form to which you can add your company’s information. Contract Maker Pro assists in making custom releases by providing a common template in which you can adapt custom fields to fit your unique needs.
For Recreational Photographers:
Artify: Do you like both photography and painting? This App transforms any image you choose into impressionistic artwork, later allowing you to sharpen details of faces or objects. Or you can customize your image by using your
finger as a small, medium or large brush to alter the look of your photo.
Airplay: Allows you to stream images wirelessly from your iPad to HDTV.
Airprint: Wireless printing straight from your iPad.
Clearly this is not an exhaustive description of the possibilities that the iPad can bring to the world of Photography, but it demonstrates the basic benefits. While the iPad may not replace traditional forms or photography development, it is clearly learning the tricks of the trade. And who knows? Maybe someday the camera will be a thing of the past.
Last month, we offered a few summer travel photo tips to keep you organized and prepared to capture those unforgettable moments. Here’s Part 2 showcasing tips on how to turn a mundane moment into a praiseworthy picture.
Don't forget to put yourself in the photo!
- GROUP SHOT. In the spirit of “no family member left behind,” it’s important to get at least one group shot while on vacation together. So whether you use a tripod or ask a total stranger to help out, it’s never too early to get your holiday card shot while the whole gang’s together.
- BLINKING IS BAD, BUT NOT LOOKING IS GOOD. On vacations, kids have the tendency to get wrapped up in many new experiences. Don’t forget to take pictures of them exploring even if they don’t know it. Some of the best pictures are the candid action shots.
- EVERY MOMENT, NOT JUST THE SCENIC ONES. Everyone loves a beautiful sunset or the iconic shot of the Empire State Building. But don’t forget to capture the less thrilling moments too, like getting packed, being in the plane or goofing off at a hotel or campsite.
- TAKE TIME TO REFLECT. At the end of each busy day, spend some time talking about each family member’s favorite moments. Add these thoughts and anecdotes to the pictures from that day to create a rich, integrated story of your special time together as a family.
- IT’S OK TO BE CLICHÉD. As photographers, we tend to want to take a photo that’s different. However, trying to frame every one of your travel photos to be ‘unique’ will either get you extremely frustrated, have you snapping up only 30 photos, or both. It’s fine to take a photo of the Eiffel Tower front-on, or the illusion that your friend’s pushing the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
- IT WON’T BE MUNDANE ONE YEAR FROM NOW. Like cliched photos, it’s also fine to take less than stunning subjects. The confusing currencies, the weird and wonderful signs, what you see while staring out the window. Don’t delete the ‘boring’ photos! They might seem mundane a few seconds after you’ve taken them. But you’d look back on them a year from now and realize just how well they’ve documented your travels.
- BE CREATIVE, USE PROPS. The souvenirs and postcards you purchase, use them as props in your next photo. It’s a sure way to get you thinking out of the box and produce some interesting photos.
- TAKE NOTES. A picture might be worth a thousand words, but sometimes it still doesn’t express how you really feel. Excitement? Culture shocked? Home sick? Carry a small notebook around and just jot down a few sentences when you feel over-whelmed to do so, along with the image number.
- PUT YOURSELF IN THE PHOTO. As photographers, we often forget to put ourselves in front of the camera. Don’t just shoot a self-portrait with your arms stretched out in front of you (yes, we’ve all done that plenty of times). Give your camera to a trusting-looking passerby!
40 years of marriage celebrated…now it’s 10 years later and they’re still going strong! 10 years ago, one of our clients created a slideshow on VHS as a gift for her parents 40th wedding anniversary. Currently, she is updating this slideshow (on to DVD) to include the most recent 10 years of their marriage. Additionally (as technological innovations have expanded our digital creation possibilities) she is substituting parts of the original audio with music, and may even choose to add some narration. After 50 years, I’m sure there are plenty of stories to be told!One client made the trek from Vail down to our Denver store to update her memory books (after laying idle in her attic for way too long. She brought in armload after armload of boxes full of scrapbooks and loose photos then left her memories for us to consolidate and modernize. We are currently working to meticulously remove all photos and memorabilia from the scrapbooks, scan everything, and compile on to one disk for her viewing convenience.
We all think our dads are the best, right? Well what if the entire city of Denver agreed with you? One of our clients’ dads was such a notable figure in Denver’s history that the Denver
Public Library asked to commemorate him by displaying his scrapbook in one of their libraries. Hesitant to give away such a precious keepsake, he has asked us to transfer the treasure to a digital format that he can cherish forever. We have scanned everything from the scrapbook to an online format and currently he is using our compatible software to proof the working draft from home. As soon as he gives us the final edits, we will print and bind the photobook which will include an attached sleeve for the DVD version. Then finally the Denver Public Library can celebrate in knowing that they possess such an important piece of history.
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