I started traveling kind of late in life. I was born in Los Angeles and until I turned 22 I hadn’t been east of Denver, Colorado or north of Sacramento, CA. A few trips into Mexico and western Canada broadened my world until I met Becki. Becki is from south Georgia and she brought me home to meet her family and friends, broadening my travel scope even further. Then the traveling over seas began. Being a photographer and always having at least one camera with me means that I have collected tens of thousands of images, both film and digital, over the years. The image editing process usually starts during our trips if not, then immediately when we get home and a photo book documenting our travels follows shortly thereafter.
Having high quality photo books means that we actually look at the pictures more than once on the computer or, worse yet, on a phone. The images don’t languish in a binder full of unprinted negatives or on a hard drive, backed up for safety, in our fireproof safe. We can share our experiences with anyone willing to sit still long enough, or relive them again ourselves in a familiar, tactile and tangible way.
Like almost everyone I know, we have thousands of old family photos thrown in boxes and albums from a time when using film was the only option and every photo was printed, the good ones making it into the family albums and the rest thrown into the “analog” hard drive, a shoe box. Our photo boxes and albums were put away in the garage, in plastic tubs, until about six months ago when my latest, ongoing, project began.
I have really gone off on a tangent here.
I’ll get to the point.
I am sorting, scanning and compiling pictures of the three Trujillo kids, my sister Terri, brother Michael and myself when we were very young children. I am making another photo book for myself and my brother,. Sadly, the relationship that we had with my sister while growing up, especially in our teen years, caused us to separate and she died without us making amends. We hadn’t spoken to each other in years before we were notified of her death.
I am hoping that the book will, by seeing these images, when we were all so innocent and young, give Mike and I a feeling that the three of us are together again and we can relive our happy childhood days.
