Time Travel, via scanner
Time travelling through my own lifetime, via a film scanner.
40 years ago, I lived in Scotland. The whole family had moved up there when my Dad was moved to work at the Grangemouth oil refinery and plastics works. We settled into the dormitory town of Dollar, and that’s where I spent my formative years, as a very English boy in a fairly Scottish town.
It’s a very long way from my life today, both emotionally and geographically. But sometimes, it’s nice to revisit it. For the past decade, I’ve been engaged in a very long term project to get all the family negatives I own — mine and my parents’ — into digital form, so they can be enjoyed by future generations.
The whole process is getting easier.
- I’m scanning using an OpticFilm 8200i (seemingly replaced by the 8300i), using Vuescan software
- First editing pass is done in Adobe Photoshop, using the Photo Restoration Neural Filter
- Colour correction and touch-up then done using Photomator on an iPad Pro.
As you can see from this selection of photos from early 1983, they come out pretty well, considering that they weren’t great quality images to start with:
A walk to the ruin of Hillfoot House and Paradise Pool above Dollar - February 1983
That was a fun batch of photos to go through, but it didn’t have much of an emotional impact.
What came out next did.
This is my Dad, who’s been gone for over 22 years now, hard at work in the front garden of our first house in Dollar. One photo, and I’m back in my just pre-teen years, enjoying a lazy Sunday at home, back when nearly everything shut on a Sunday. People gardened, washed their cars and watched sport while the Sunday roast cooked.
A different era, a different life.
Miss you, Dad.
We do love slagging off digital and its impact on our lives at the moment, but its ability to bring back moments like this to us — and to share them — is wonderful and precious.
