A picture is worth a thousand words. So goes the cliché. 

Since 2022 or so, I’ve spent the holiday season wiling away my time digitizing old family photos. The process includes careful (one might say surgical) extraction of said photos from a prison of Scotch tape and photo album adhesive. More on that later. Then, for each one: I scan (often front and back, to preserve any notes, dates, names, etc.), digitally straighten and restore (via Adobe suite), back up via physical and cloud storage, and share with family (via Google). Then, I store all of the originals in archive boxes, folding them within acid free tissue paper. It’s a time-consuming process, so I’ve thrown some money at LegacyBox and iMemories to help expedite things.

Now, I think being a sports fan has made me a bit of a stats person. So far, I’ve digitized:

• 1,834 scans of photos from old family albums (cool note: some date back to the 1880s)
• 1,807 scans of loose photos in boxes
• 19 camcorder tapes (used a little converter/recorder)
• 725 scans (LegacyBox)
• 45 mins of 8mm film (LegacyBox)
• 521 scans (iMemories)
• Upcoming Work: ~725 photos to scan, etc.

But why am I writing about this?

If you take a look at the image for this blog post, you’ll see a before and after photo restoration. While it’s not the best work and wasn’t the most difficult photo I’ve restored, it has significance for me. I find it amazing that I can clearly see my 2nd-great-grandfather sitting with his family when he was not much older than me. On his right is my great-grandfather, then just a boy of four or five. A single frame of their lives forever captured—and recorded—in light.

There are so many bits of inspiration for the Raiders of Light series in my photo restoration pet project. Family, for example, is at the heart of the story. The memories reflected on these dusty pieces of paper and cardboard are a bridge to a time almost one hundred years before my birth, now almost 140 years ago.

Five generations. In some ways, we’ve lived in entirely different worlds. But we obviously are more the same than we’re different. We’re all human, and that’s a well explored and documented existence in all its various forms and derivatives. Nobody is that unique. And similarity drives connection. Without ever meeting our ancestors, photos make us feel like we might know something about them. (Aside: And, for the ones we did know who loved their Scotch tape, restoring those photos stirred up a few memories—t’anks, Grandma and Grandpa.)

Imagine if entire lifetimes were captured in light and could be examined across many millennia—a record of all the light has ever touched. Next. imagine that the data contained in this “record” could be analyzed and used. Or altered. How would you use this power? Would you effectively change the past to achieve your goals?

In Light’s Shadow, the reader meets members of the Ten and begins to see the unique answers to these questions they each found. In future books in the series, you’ll begin to see how their personal goals underscore a quite varied understanding about why they received the powers they did and what their purpose is. I don't think I can say anything more without having to say a lot more, so I'll stop here.

To close, I’d like to return to the beginning and say that—particularly if we're talking the Raiders of Light series—the picture was worth well more than 1,000 words.

Back to scanning!