About Save Your Past

Following the arrival of our first child we found that we started to feel quite different about our place in our own families. Seeing life through the eyes of the next generation made us feel somehow more connected with those generations that had gone before us. We sought to learn more about our family history and asked our own parents and extended families to dig out their old photos and keepsakes, in order that we could get to know our personal histories a little more intimately.

Old shoe boxes of photographs were dug out from the attic, endless 35mm slides were retrieved from spare rooms, and even my Grandpa's old cigarette tin of small photos that he had carried with him during WWII was brought briefly out of safe keeping. As you can imagine it was a pretty emotional time all round, one that brought us together even closer as a family.

We were acutely aware that all of these old photographs, slides, negatives and all forms of pre-digital media were unprotected from accidents and misfortune, and were slowly deteriorating year on year. So we acted to save our past to ensure that these treasured memories could be available for our own children once they were old enough to become interested in their pasts and for the future generations that will hopefully follow them.
Thinking about how the visual quality of an everyday TV set has improved even over the last 5 years, it seems clear to us that as future technological enhancments come out, the quality of viewed experiences will just increase their definition. As such we decided to digitise in the highest quality we could reasonably achieve with today's scanning technology. We created smaller derivative images for our everyday use and for sharing today, but are glad to know that the extremely high resolution scanned images are there waiting for the future generations to enjoy.

The more we scanned and digitised our old family photographs the more we were able to share these hidden away memories. We made DVD slide-shows, and setup Web Galleries so that we could share them with our family and friends around the world. The response we received was a joy to behold, and the more their importance became clear, so we invested in better and better equipment in order to do these memories justice. As friends saw and heard about what we were doing we started getting requests to do the same for them. One thing lead to another and we found that helping people save their pasts was profoundly important to us and something we loved doing, so today we hope that we might have the privilege to help you Save Your Past too.

Emma Seymour
(Founder, Save Your Past Ltd.)



** As of September 2019, Save Your Past is one of the services offerings of See More Potential Ltd.