Full Circle Heritage Services - Photo Collection

Phone: (575) 233-4071
54 Santana Rd. • Vado, NM 88072

Photo Collection* and Curation*

Visual images serve both personal history and oral history in far-reaching ways. Photos can greatly enrich one's grasp of the character of his or her ancestors, giving the individual some idea how a person looked, dressed, carried himself, how he lived, and what seemed important enough to photograph. In historical archaeology, photographs may provide important clues regarding the nature of man's use of the landscape.

Quite often, there is one person who ends up with the majority of the family photos. In my family, that person is me. People from large families, however, may have more than one person who would like copies of the family photos.

Curation of family photographs goes hand in hand with the preparation of a personal history. With our current technology making it possibly for even those of us with modest means to collect, scan, and make prints of family photographs, little stands in the way of making your family photographs available to everyone who wants them.

Can you scan and catalog them yourself? Of course. You could do that. However, whether you work outside the home, are a busy parent, or an active retiree, you may have trouble finding the time to provide this important service to your family. Let Full Circle Heritage Services make it easy. We'll take that task off your hands, scan and organize your photos, put them on CDs, or make prints of your collection, either as a separate service or in conjunction with a personal history project.

No one should be without copies of this important component of their family heritage: the images of one's ancestors, important relatives and family friends, weddings and other important occasions, in an accessible and elegant format.

They say "a picture is worth a thousand words," (and yes, I checked to see if I could discover who first uttered this phrase, to no avail. If you know, let me know.) One could say that's an understatement. When a photo adds a visual dimension to something that formerly was merely conceptual, the result can be profound. Just as in personal history, visual images can be highly useful and desirable in oral history projects. Additionally, having photos at hand in historic archaeological projects can provide important information not available through words alone.

Photos of oral history informants, and of individuals, objects, and places referenced in interviews can greatly enhance the information collected on tape, on digital media, and in transcripts by giving a visual record of what is being discussed, thereby deepening our understanding and appreciation for the speakers and their subjects alike. Archaeologists may use photographic images to aid in determining what structures were present in a given location, or even where such structures were, if they are no longer standing, in relationship to topographical features.

Additionally, photos have intrinsic value in and of themselves, in that they enable us to identify the fashions, trends, technology, location, and materials in use in any given period, providing that the provenance and dates of the photos are available. Institutions commissioning oral histories, archaeological studies, and other historical research would be remiss if they did not also seek to preserve visual images relating to their fields of inquiry.

Full Circle Heritage Services offers photographic curatorial services to public and private institutions involved in historic and archaeological investigations, in a fashion similar to that offered to personal history clients. Photos can be scanned and catalogued for use in reports or exhibits, or transferred to CDs, to provide convenient access to visual images that will greatly enrich any oral history project or archaeological study.

* In this discussion, photo collection has two meanings. In the case of personal history, it simply means to gather together a group of photographs for the sake of preparing digital images or print copies. In the case of oral history projects, however, it may mean the actual acquisition of photographic prints or negatives for placement in an archive. The term curation also can be applied differently, depending on the project type. In personal history projects, curation means the collection, handling, and preparation of photos for copying and preservation, whether that occurs via digital media or as hard copies. In oral history, I mean the term to encompass acquisition, cataloguing, and any other work necessary to prepare such images for transferral to a suitable archive.