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OK, here's my dilemma. About a year ago, I cleaned out my aunt's apartment. She is now in an assisted living place. My aunt was an amateur photographer - big time. I now have boxes and boxes and BOXES filled with photo albums, plus envelopes of photos, plus many slides. Some of these photos are of family long dead, that I definitely want to keep. Some are more recent photos - lots of them. Some are pictures my aunt took of friends, places she visited, etc.
Here're my questions:
1) what would you do with pictures of her friends, trips, etc.? My aunt doesn't have Alzheimer's (she's 85), but since her stroke she doesn't remember a lot of people. She also doesn't have room to put any of these things. I thought of sending some of the pictures to the people in the pictures, but most of them are dead, and the rest likely have copies already. (My aunt was very good about giving people copies.) I feel awful throwing out someone's life's memories. But what else can I do? Any thoughts on this either to give me an alternative or something to make me feel better about throwing them out? They are literally taking up half a room. (I'm talking side by side and up to the ceiling.)

2) For the pictures that I'm keeping, how should I keep them? Is it better to keep them in their albums? I know a lot of the albums are probably not what is consider safe storage today, but the pictures have held up for thirty years and more. The albums are taking up an enormous amount of room. Do you think they would take up less room if I took them out of the albums and stored them in photo boxes? Do you recommend any particular type or brand of storage?

3) She also has cameras and lenses. My cousin took some of them (not all) to show a professional. He said that although they were good cameras at their time, they were nothing special, nothing a camera collector would want. Again, I just can't bring myself to throw them out. But what am I going to do with them?! Again, there are a few boxes of them.

Thank you so much.

1. If the pictures mean something to someone then by all means give it to them. Perhaps even making a video memory box (self promotion here) by making DVD video montages.

2. I suggest making digital copies of the photos in a high DPI and image size format for any digital format future and back them as data so you can even print hem in the future. I would suggest restoring any damaged photos that have meaning before they are lost. For more information PM me.

Regarding the photos themselves I do not have experience on that but at least keep them in a dark place.

Do you think that maybe the photographs could be of interest to a local historical society or maybe the local library? If you want to keep some scan them and put them on discs. One set to keep in a fireproof safe/box/whatever and one for you.

Thanks for posting this Ann - I am currently going through old photos and slides that my parents had in the house. Mostly we don't even know who the people are anymore (my parents were semi-pro photographers) and I absolutely hate throwing out pictures.

I have thought about historical society for some of the "souvenior" type things we have found - or selling them on eBay

in the mean time store them in a cool dry dark place.

if you make albums out of them look for the term "archival" and/or acid free storage albums. slides can be keep in archival plastic jackets.

if you don't want the cameras/lenses, consider ebay? someone out there might want them.