My Life via DVD

I recently received my life on DVD. No, not a made-for-TV movie, although I think Ashley Judd would portray me quite well. I sent my photos from the 1970s, 80s and early 90s to scanmyphotos.com. Lots of people worried that these precious moments caught on camera would get lost in the mail, or somehow get destroyed. it was possible, but I decided to risk it.

I found out about scanmyphotos.com from my dad, who sent me a link to a New York Times article more than a year ago. Scanmyphotos.com touted they can scan 1,000 photographs for $50+tax and shipping. I originally thought that I might have a hard time coming up with 1,000 photos. Not exactly. I am now up to more than 4,000 photographs (of course, this includes about 1,000 from Scott's stash) and I'm not done yet.

The company does provide a unlimited photos box (fits up to 2,000 standard size photos), that includes priority mail shipping, for $125. I realized I needed 3 boxes, which is pricey. But since following them on twitter, I noticed they were running two promotions, saving me $150. Don't think that scanning nearly 5,000 photos is cheap, it's not. But the alternative (me scanning them by hand) was not an option, and I wanted all of my pre-digital memories available with just a mouse click. Memories like these...

Grandma and Grandpa Hatteberg, taken at 819 Redbarn, sometime between 1975-1977.
A school picture of Scott, 6th or 7th grade, around 1986-1987
Summer vacation, Gulf Shores, AL 1989
Lisa's USAFA graduation, May 1994
The first picture Scott and I ever took together, 1995
Actual photographs will fade over time and become unrecognizable, but these will live on digitally as a one of thousands of jpegs stored on our external hard drive.

Scanmyphotos.com provides precise instructions on how to prepare your photos, even a video. I won't go through them, but it was one of the most difficult parts of the process. There was an additional cost for optional services like photos that were scanned in groups, rotated right side up, and if you wanted a signature verification.

Another time consuming part of this was removing the photos from albums. The worst culprits were photos from the 1970s and early 1980s. Some of the photos were stuck like super glue in the albums, and despite my desperate attempts, would not budge.

I had two boxes ready to mail, but at the last minute decided to send only one, just in case. I mailed my box and it was returned to me with all the original photos and a DVD with 1,800 scanned photos in less than seven days. I have already mailed my second box.