Dad is very protective of his photos. He barely lets me out of the house with them. He finally has conceded temporarily to allow me to digitize them for safekeeping. But first, they have to be organized. You see, they are all just thrown in these boxes in no order whatsoever. Photos ranging from the 1940s all the way up until the early 2000s. Today, I am going to be focusing on photos ranging from the 1970s to the 1990s. All from Bull Shoals Lake in Arkansas. I first separated the ones from Bull Shoals out from the other photos, then took some time to break them down into piles from there.
Now, I am by all means not an expert at identifying & dating photographs, but I have learned a couple of tricks that use to help me group the photos together. It does help I have background information about these photos that help with the identification process. Let me share some of the tricks I used to group these photos together. Fair warning, yes this is very time consuming, so if you know you don't have hours to dedicate to this, find somewhere you can work where you can leave your photos out until you come back.
Where To Start?
When starting with a huge box of photos, it can be very daunting. But once you start dividing them up into smaller groups, it becomes more manageable. What groups do you start with? Well, it depends on what kinds of photos you have. If they are not in any order at all, just start grabbing groups to look through. If dates appear anywhere on the photos, group them by that first. If you are dealing with no dates, which is what most of my photos were, group them by other categories such as location, event, people, or estimated years. For me, I pulled out all photos I knew were from Bull Shoals Lake. That was like a second home to me so I knew what photos at the lake looked like. Other categories include different houses such as the first house I lived in and then the current house my parents live in. If I had school pictures, I grouped those together. If there were professional photos, that was another group. If there were photos of other vacations/trips/outings, I grouped those together. Getting started is always the tricky part. So group your photos based on what you have and what works for you. So let's start with the Bull Shoals Lake photos.
Like I said, these photos range from 1970-1990. From there, I checked for dates and markings. Grouped those together. Then I took out all the polaroid photos and put them in a group by themselves. I will explain later. The next step is to look for similarities in the photos. I described this part to my daughter as being like a cross between the game "Memory" and the "Find What's Different" game in the old Highlights magazine.
Similar People, Clothing, & Surroundings
First, I look for similar people and similar clothing. I found a few photos of my mom & was able to combine them with some photos of her wearing the same outfit. So I knew they went together & were taken at the same time. Then if she was in the photos with certain people, I look for those people in other photos wearing the same outfit they were wearing in the photo with my mom. Because that means those other photos go with these. See examples below:
My mom was wearing pink pants and a shirt with the number 11 written on it. So I knew the four lower photos in the first picture all belonged together. But if you look in the one photo with my mom on the right, in the background there is a lady sitting in a chair with a red sleeveless shirt on. That matches the lady in the photo next to her, so I could conclude the photos with this woman were taken on the same day.
These photos are of me and two of the children my mom used to babysit. Since we are all wearing the same things in these photos, I could deduce that all these photos go together. My hair is the same (I'm in the life jacket) and the two kids are wearing goggles.
Another tip for combining photos. Not only should you look at the same people & clothing, but look at their surroundings. That might help you group more photos together that you never knew went together. Let me explain with this example:
The photos on the left are of my dad on the dock. He was showing off the fish he had just caught. He is wearing the exact same clothes in each photo so I can conclude these photos all belong together. But how did I know that the photo with my Uncle Howard was taken on the same day? You can see on the right that in both of these photos, there is a tackle box and a towel draped over a chair in the exact same position. So that helped me conclude these photos belonged together.
How can you determine these groups of fish belong together and were taken around the same time? Look at the tools in the photo. They are in the exact same place. See what I mean when I said it's like those little "Find The Difference" games in the Highlights magazine? Except this time I feel like I'm trying to Find the Same haha!
Polaroids
Polaroids were one of the best things that happened when it came to photos. Instant photographs. The first Polaroid camera came out in 1948 and they have been popular ever since. They dropped off somewhat in the late 90s early 2000s as digital photos were becoming more prevalent. They seem to be making a comeback with this next generation with the new equipment that has become available. We have a TON of polaroids from when I was growing up. Unfortunately, they are not labeled. But I did learn some information recently that has helped me with not only grouping them but dating them.
These are the polaroids I am working with right now. They became available around 1980. Do you have some of these? When was the last time you looked at the back of one? Did you most of them have a unique number printed on the back of them? I sure didn't until I started looking closer. See photo below:
This number on the back of the polaroids made it possible for me to group the photographs together. Now while it's not a guarantee the photos were definitely taken on the same day, you can believe they were taken in the same year. I was able to put photos in the same group that I never would have known belonged together. See some examples below:
Just looking at this group of photos, I wouldn't be able to tell if they belonged together or not. But thanks to the numbers on the back of each of these photos, I can group them together. It sometimes can tell a story as to what's going on during the day.
Now I could deduce from the photos on the left that they go together because of the outfit of my Uncle Marty. But thanks to the numbers, I was able to add more photos to this group. My mom tripped me up in one photo because she put on a sweatshirt in another photo. Now, not only was I able to group polaroid photos together, I was able to group some 35mm photos with these polaroids. See what I am talking about below.
Mixed Media
I don't know about your family, but my family had both a 35mm camera AND a polaroid and used them interchangeably, especially on vacation. So I had some photos that were taken on the 35mm camera that went with some photos that were taken with the polaroid. In order to combine them, I went back to the first tip I told you about. Look for similar people, clothing, and surroundings. By doing that, I was able to combine some more groups together. See examples below:
Remember the photos I shared above with the fish? Well, apparently those photos belong with the polaroids I just shared above as well. My dad appears in the photos to the right. He is wearing a blue shirt and visor. So these photos definitely belong together.
Look At The Back
My biggest suggestion of course is to always look at the back of the photos. Sometimes family will write information on the back, sometimes not. But look closely, cause sometimes there are stamps that contain information from when they were developed. That will help you not only date the photos but also group them together.
I had quite a lot of these photos that had a date on the back. It's hard to see, but it says May 1989. So I grouped all these photos together.
These are just some tips that I hope will be helpful for you when it comes to grouping photos together. I've been able to date many photos in this collection only because I know about the time frame of certain details. I plan on taking these groups of photos with me back to my dad (after I digitize them of course, cause he probably won't let me leave the house with them again) and talking with him about what was going on in them. Get the back story if possible. It will help him get his mind off things too. Covid has been really affecting his mental state since he can't leave the house. So I'm trying to use this time to digitize photos and then talk to him about them.
What tips do you have for grouping photos?
