The photo that started it all

This photo was taken a mere weeks before my grandfather, Patrick “Petey Mack” Pantoliano, died.  I am the only grandchild (of 4) he ever knew.  And I never would have seen this if my uncle hadn’t given it to me to mark my 18th birthday.  Given to me — not emailed, or reprinted.  It’s a gesture totally lost in our digital culture.

The Flood

Many years later my parents had some water damage in their house, and many photos and negatives were irretrievably damaged.  Fast forward a few more years and armed with a scanner I went through every slide, negative and print and digitized them.  Not only would they be preserved, but both my sister and I would be able to have and make copies (regardless of who ends up with the physical prints).

A-ha

“If I have pictures of you, chances are good you have pictures of me”.  It started with me just trying to find pictures of my grandfather, but quickly expanded to the entire family on all sides.

This becomes the point of this project — to preserve and share photos of past generations for the future ones.  I have created a website—http://snaps.jasonbeals.com that we can use to share the photos.  Everyone is invited.  Just contact me for access.

Summarily

So that is why  you are seeing this — because either I found you, or I’ve begged, pleaded, or cajoled another family member into finding you.

AND WE WANT YOUR PICTURES.

Won’t you help out?

How does it work?

If you have old pictures scanned already, then you can contact me and we can use Dropbox or some other sharing service to get them to me or you can upload them directly to the photo site.

If you don’t have a scanner (or the time).  You can mail them to me, or if you are in North Jersey we can schedule a physical hand-off next time I come through.  [It would be nice to meet you after all].  I’ll scan them and get them back to you.

I can scan negatives, slides, prints. I can also transfer nearly any video format as well.