Organizing a Lifetime of Family Memories

As a lifelong documentarian, I recognized the importance of documenting my own history in recent years. By 19 both my birth parents were deceased, and for years everything I retained from my childhood remained in storage. In the wake of the pandemic I also realized the urgency to reconnect and capture my grandparents’ story.

In two-years (with 6 months of intense focus), I’ve completed:

I. Digitization of all photos, VHS tapes, and DVDs. Including over 20,000 individual images, and dozens of hours of footage.

II. Scanning of physical/archival items: objects, scrapbooks, mementos, newspapers.

III. 2-day, 3-cam sit-down professionally captured interview with my grandparents.

IV. Video and Audio conversations and interviews with grandparents, reviewing photo albums, tapes, and archival materials and photos with thorough reflections/descriptions.

V. Creative and documentary capture with grandparents, including: site visits of significance, holiday and daily life coverage, super8 and 35mm film footage and photography, and more.

VI. Organization, sorting/securing, and documenting all personal storage items.

VII. Exploration of AI photo enhancement and other tools for future-proofing and enriching archive.