Lanphear Digital

This is a private website where friends and family can go to look at memories throughout the years. There are documents and photos dating back to the early 1900s all the way up to modern times! In order to view photos and videos, please click on the "Viewer" tab on the sidebar or header. To look at documents such as newspapers in PDF format click on the "Files" tab.

If you want to learn how to setup a VPN or have any other questions click on the "Help" page.

The Beginnings:

Around 2019 the family was looking through old photos, swiping through pages of large binders. Austin wanted to scan a couple of them to keep since he already had some images of his own saved on the computer. As time went on, he slowly scanned more and more images until the 5 binders of photos were scanned. Cropping, fixing, and digitally restoring each photo until they looked complete. Eventually these photos where put on google drive for all the family members to see.

Starting in 2021 Austin went at scanning the photos again adding more to the google drive but eventually the free limit was quickly reached. More storage was bought and was left that way for a few years, but in 2023 he decided that archive was not easy for people to use and a new solution needed to be made. He decided to make a website in order to make navigating and looking for documents easier, especially since the google drive solution forced people to navigate through arbitrary folders to find what they wanted.

Before creating the website however a redo of the collection was needed. Without getting to technical, the old scans were less than ideal because they were made small to fit google drive. It was because of this quality was sacrified for quantity, however now that a website was going to be made quality no longer needed to be sacrified. So Austin went at scanning the binders again, making 2 copies per image: an original scan without any changes for archival purpose and a fixed image for viewing online. This was not a small challege to take on however, starting in September of 2023 Austin went on the journey to archive all the family documents.

Scanning and Editing:

Like stated before the start of the journey began with scanning the old photos again, this time with a better scanner to ensure the best transfer from analog to digital. This took about a month to do and only included printed photos, no film, or tapes; and was mostly already organized by decades. When this was done, Craig brought over his personal collection and this proved to be a monumental task. Unlike the previous collection of images they were unoranized and contained film, printouts, 8mm tapes, etc. So unlike before it wasn't just scanning page by page until a binder was done, sorting had to be done first.

The sorting started with finding images of similar size and making a pile of them, so 4-inch prints in one pile, 3-inch prints on another, film strips in a pile, and so on. Once this was done further sorting was done to find if any documents contained dated, so if an envelope of film had a date on it, it would be in a seperate pile. Finally once everything was divided one last check was done to find any duplicates, since there would be no reason to scan an image more than once. This took the longest due to the sheer amount of photos and film on hand, but after many months it was done. Now the process of scanning then digital editing took focus; of which took 3-4 months.

Once the photos were done the 8mm film video was scanned using a Kodak Reel-to-Reel machine. The videos were then put through video software to make the video movement more fluid and less "film-like". VHS tapes were also recorded using an Elgato Composite capture card and digitally stored. Finally by the end of Janurary 2024 all of the photos had been digitized and archived, with copied back up on hard-drives, Blu-ray discs, and other mediums.

The Archive Today:

That leaves the archive to where it is now, kept up to date every so often with new pictures submitted by other members and maintained by Austin. The site is heavily secured and requires new members to contact an admin in order to view any documents. This was done to ensure that the public cannot access files freely without permission since there are documents and photos that are personal in nature and not intended for public use. Hence the strictness of the site's content.

To learn more about the technical aspects of the archive go to the HELP page to learn more.