Photos have the power to awaken memories, and preserving them is especially important for those whose family memories are fading with every neglected photograph.
“Photos that are tossed in the bottom of a drawer and unidentified are someday going to be tossed out and lost forever,” warns 61-year-old Pat Griffith, who’s become adept at creating personal scrapbooks. “With very little work, you can create a memory album that somebody in your family four or five generations away is going to love to have.”
Scrapbooking has become a big hobby in recent years. In fact, at last winter’s Feast of Jewish Learning, the S.F.-based Bureau of Education presented a workshop on putting together albums of photos and other mementos. A workshop will be held Thursday at the Osher Marin Jewish Community Center.
Some enthusiasts artfully design and carefully theme their album pages to tell a story: perhaps a romance, from first date to proposal to wedding ceremony.
Griffith knows the value of photographs.
Throughout much of her life, the Chillicothe, Ill. woman carried a small picture in her wallet of her father, who was killed in World War II during the Normandy invasion. Griffith was 4 years old at the time.
“I never really knew him,” she said. “I was raised by my grandparents, and the picture was the only one I had of my father. My wallet was stolen about 10 or 15 years ago, and I lost the picture. You could imagine how I felt. It meant everything in the world to me.”
Fortunately, Griffith’s family members uncovered several photographs of her father and mailed them to her two years ago. They are now a prominent part of her family album.
“Some people can get very creative with their albums,” Griffith said. “And that’s the fun of it. You try and tell a story with your photos and make it interesting to look at.”
For memories that last, scrapbookers must use the right materials or the photos will quickly turn yellow and brittle. To prevent this deterioration, Griffith advises using albums that are made to preserve photos, and “safe” supplies like acid-free and lignin-free paper and “safe” plastics, glues, stickers and inks. Before these materials were developed, scrapbooks would deteriorate because they used paper and plastics with built-in self-destructive elements.
A frequent mistake is not properly identifying the photos.
“That’s really key,” Griffith said. “Have you ever picked up a box of old pictures and you have no idea who the people are or what they are doing? You just toss them back in the box. Take time to identify every photograph. Don’t just say who they are or when it happened, but add a little bit about what they were doing.”
One doesn’t have to major in fine arts to design an attractive album page. But there are some design elements to consider. The Its All Scrap! Web page devoted to scrapbooking — www.collectedmemories.com — offers some basic tips on designing a page; other ideas are on Scrapbook.com
*Keep it simple. There’s no reason to make your very first page an elaborate do-all.
*Choose several pictures that go together (odd numbers work best in a layout), and pick one to be the main focal point of the page.
*Don’t be afraid to trim or crop your photos. Cropping lets you get rid of unimportant areas in the frame.
*Keep in mind how your eyes scan a page, from left to right, up and down, or from corner to corner, usually in a circular pattern. Place your photos in a visually appealing pattern across the page.
*Don’t get locked into that linear, horizontal rut. Experiment with angled photos that scatter across the page.
*Add other graphic elements to enhance photos. Frame a photo with a piece of colored card stock or background paper so that it extends slightly beyond the edges.
*Stickers and rubber-stamping can dress up a page.
*Consider adding memorabilia to a page, such as concert tickets or a lock of a baby’s hair.
“Don’t have all the pages looking alike,” Griffith cautioned. “And clip pictures in various shapes to avoid all square pictures on a page. But be careful what you clip out of a picture. The car that you think is not very interesting may be what people focus on years from now.”
Some photographs naturally lend themselves to a holiday event, such as a Chanukah party or Purim pageant, or a theme. Griffith suggests simply using your imagination.
“I have one album that is just on my back yard,” she said, “and another one that is of pictures of me doing things with my grandchildren last summer.”