The Hake Crew: Lynn, Karen, Jeanne, Dallas, & Dee
August, 1961 ~ Photo by Grandpa Hake
From the moment I began designing the Labbees.net site, I envisioned Grandpa Hake's family snapshots fitting into the framework. Over a year later, I've finally managed to incorporate several thousand of his images. After fetching a dozen boxes of slides from Grandma last summer, I evaluated several scanning services and settled upon a company called ScanCafe. The first batch of slides went out before I left for Southeast Asia in September; by December, it was back in Seattle. (Ironically, I keep racing the slides around the globe. Though ScanCafe is an American company, most of its scanning services are performed in India.) I've since had eight additional sets sent off for conversion, with half of them back in my possession today. Last month, I set out to determine how to best incorporate the images into our site; the result is now available for you to see.
Among the decisions I pondered was where to "host" Grandpa's photos. After experimenting with Picasa and Flickr, I decided to piggyback on my existing Web site and store the files there. Doing so meant sacrificing capabilities like adding photo comments and highlighting favorites, but it also enabled total control of image security and quality/size. By using the existing site, we're able to host high-resolution images "for free." Neither Picasa nor Flickr would have allowed that. (Grandpa's library of images will ultimately exceed 10 GB in size – and you'll have access to every byte.)
Because I chose not to filter Grandpa's photos – with the exception of a few badly blurred images, I've discarded nothing – I thought it was important that they not be publicly available on the Internet. Except for those images I make public via this blog, Grandpa's photos are all password-protected. You'll only need to enter a password once per session, but password-protecting everything meant I wouldn't have to worry about pics of unclothed kids or unflattering poses some of us would rather not see tagged on Facebook!
Dan & Karen in their First Apartment in Pullman
November, 1970 ~ Photo by Grandpa Hake
Ron on the Water
July, 1971 ~ Photo by Grandpa Hake
Ultimately, I chose to incorporate Grandpa's photos as collections organized by year, each accessible via the [Photo Galleries] tab within the existing Labbees.net framework. If you hit that tab and scroll to the bottom of the gallery list, you'll see a series of shows beginning with 1957. (Lynn was all of six years old!) Each subsequent year will have its own gallery, although we're presently missing a chunk from the 1960s and everything after 1984. By August, the collection should be "complete". (I'm incorporating slides Grandpa kept in his "family" trays; there are thousands of shots from hiking trips and other outings that won't be accessible here.) So the simplest way to view Grandpa's slides is to hit the [Galleries] tab, select a year, and go!
A more powerful option, however, is a tool enabling dynamic gallery generation. As each set of slides is received from ScanCafe, I plug the images into a database and tag them with subjects depicted and dates captured. This takes some time, as it means I'm looking at and tagging individual slides. You can normally expect the dates listed to be accurate within a month. Particularly with images from the 1950s and '60s, though, the dates are sometimes "guesstimates." Grandpa himself didn't label slides from that era until years or even decades later, so even the dates he specified may be wrong. (Mom has already pointed out that the images from Easter, 1957, look more like first-day-of-school photos than Easter pics.) I've done my best to tag and date things accurately, but inevitably there will be errors.
Inaccuracies aside, once dates and tags are associated with the images, there's no end to the searching and cataloging you can do. That's how I came up with the dynamic gallery generator (accessible here but also included atop the gallery list along with other dynamic galleries). The tool is pretty self-explanatory. You select one or more subjects (or "tags"), potentially a year, and generate a gallery. Resulting galleries can be saved as browser bookmarks for later use. Here's what the page looks like (provided you've entered the password):
Though fairly simple, there are several features worth noting. First, after selecting your subjects, there's an option where you can "Require any/all tag(s) for match." By default, the "all" option is selected. If you select more than one tag, all selected tags must exist for a photo to be included in the gallery; changing this to any allows photos having any matching tag to be included. Make sense? If I select both "Jason" and "Cory" from the subject list, by default my gallery will include only photos with both tags. Change the option to "Require any tag(s) for match," and my gallery will now include photos of either Jason or Cory. (They needn't be in the photo together.) Second, selecting multiple items from the lists is a bit tricky. By pressing [Ctrl] on a Windows machine or [Command] on a Mac before you select an item, you enable multiple selection. The easiest way to remove all selections is to refresh the page.
Beyond that, it's worth mentioning that the resulting galleries all include the same features and options. If you hover over an image, you'll see captions at bottom and a tool palette at top. There are three buttons on the tool palette. The first allows you to open a high-resolution version of the image in a separate window. The images displayed in the galleries are smaller in size; if you wish to work with the largest, highest-quality images – for making an 8x10-inch print, for example – download the high-resolution version of the image using this button. The second button allows you to start or stop the slideshow's "auto-play" feature, while the third enables gallery viewing in "full-screen" mode.
Ryker & Hilary Receive a Helping Hand from Grandma
June, 1979 ~ Photo by Grandpa Hake
The Labbee Girls: Julie, Leah, Sarai, Hilary, Jen; Anna, Allison, Nat
May, 1982 ~ Photo by Grandpa Hake
None of this would have been possible without the persistent effort of Grandpa Hake over (literally) half a century. He lugged his camera to every birthday party, sporting event, and hiking destination for decades. Hopefully, with many of his images accessible here, we can recreate his family slideshows and preserve the memories he captured. Of course, it won't be quite the same without him wagging a finger in front of the screen, recalling the name of a remote peak. No upside-down images blamed on grandkids or lingering glimpses of Grandma met by inevitable protest: "Now, Dal, I think we can move on." Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy the photos. Let me know if you encounter any problems – and do expect another batch later in the summer. Longer-term, I intend to make my own database of images from the next generation (tagged in the same way) available on the site.
To get things started, here are the Hakes in 1957. Enjoy!
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