Found vacation slides...

June 22, 2005 5:41 PM

I have a large box of found vacation slides from the 1950s-1970s. Apparently the Becketts lived in Los Angeles (slides were found in Texas) and traveled all over the world... Vienna, Bali, Lisbon, Singapore, Barcelona, Hong Kong, etc. There are perhaps 800-1500- all processed at Kodak Labs and packaged pristinely in little yellow boxes. I'm leaving the country (US) for a while and would like to either get rid of them or keep them for something interesting in the future. Any ideas?
posted by maya to Society & Culture (23 answers total)

If you really want to get rid of them, I will take them. Seriously. My email's in my profile.
posted by scody at 5:45 PM on June 22, 2005

Pick out the best/most-interesting/funniest ones and publish a book.
posted by Faint of Butt at 5:47 PM on June 22, 2005

I will take them if you need to get them off your hands. Check the profile for email - willing to pay for shipping, etc.
posted by rlef98 at 5:49 PM on June 22, 2005

Put them in storage, and think about what to do with them while you're out of the country. You'll think of something.
posted by interrobang at 6:15 PM on June 22, 2005

I'm sure the Becketts' living relatives would be interested. You might try to contact them, no? A quick Google turned up this.

Unless, of course, you're referring to Sam Beckett, then you're probably out of luck. :-)
posted by Lactoso at 6:16 PM on June 22, 2005

Post them to Flickr
posted by seawallrunner at 6:16 PM on June 22, 2005

I'll pay you for them and pay shipping, ha! Serious about that.

It would be a damn cool MeFi project to get a few of us to scan all of these. I have access to several slide scanners. We could put up a .torrent and a web site with them up.

Whaddya say?
posted by fake at 6:19 PM on June 22, 2005

Send them to These people?
posted by nathan_teske at 6:20 PM on June 22, 2005

Couldn't you make a zine out of them?
posted by raaka at 6:27 PM on June 22, 2005

Re-enact them and become a docu-comedian.
(think Dave Gorman).
posted by yetanother at 6:46 PM on June 22, 2005

How about a website where each slide has a 1-paragraph fictional or poetic "explanation"? Put one up a day. I'd volunteer to write one or two captions a week.
posted by _sirmissalot_ at 7:07 PM on June 22, 2005

By the way, the website I'm suggesting could be a very simple Blogger site, as long as we could rope in fake or someone else to scan the slides. With a group of people on board to cooperate on the writing, it might be a very interesting, vaguely exquisite corpse-esque artistic project.
posted by _sirmissalot_ at 7:15 PM on June 22, 2005

Second trying to find Beckett relatives, I would think their relatives would be ecstatic.
posted by quam at 7:33 PM on June 22, 2005

Form a band. (Or if you're too lazy to form a band, see if the Slideshow Players want it - it's sort of their thing).
posted by Gortuk at 7:38 PM on June 22, 2005

Beat you to that Gortuk!
posted by nathan_teske at 7:53 PM on June 22, 2005

I think that whatever you decide to do, get them scanned ASAP and post them someplace online like Flickr. Then at least, if something happens to them later, you have that visual archive. Plus, we all get to see them too.
posted by vacapinta at 8:05 PM on June 22, 2005

and if you're crafty, the actual slides make great lampshades and curtainish things. (but only do that with bad slides, or after you've scanned em)
posted by amberglow at 8:09 PM on June 22, 2005

I think attempting to locate someone from the family is the right thing to do.

How about a website where each slide has a 1-paragraph fictional or poetic "explanation"? Put one up a day. I'd volunteer to write one or two captions a week.

bighappyfunhouse
posted by mlis at 8:23 PM on June 22, 2005

Contact your local PBS station or university library. They often appreciate having this stuff available for documentaries and other historical purposes, and will make sure they're stored well for posterity.
posted by nakedcodemonkey at 9:04 PM on June 22, 2005

I second the Trachtenberg Family - they would make very good use of them.
posted by skylar at 10:31 PM on June 22, 2005

Be nondestructive -- don't cut them up or glue them or anything like that. Be constructive -- find the family, ask them who in the family is (or would be most likely to become) active in family history or genealogy or whatever, and send the slides to that person. What is to you a fun project is to them their family's history.

And you can still copy the slides you like.
posted by pracowity at 12:53 AM on June 23, 2005

(Can I get in on any you have left over? My email's in the profile too...)
posted by klangklangston at 5:43 AM on June 23, 2005

Last night I revisited the slides and went through a few small boxes randomly. There are fantastic images (I need a light table!)... One that struck me: Bora Bora, 1963, a photograph of a palm plantation and a beat up 50s Chevy posing in front of it on gravel- poor and decrepit, pieces of other makes and models filling its frame...

Thank you all for the feedback! I think the best course of action would be to sit back a bit and try to find the family once I have more free time. If they have waited 30 years for these, surely one more will do. Whether or not I can find family, I will put some slides to good use- be it a zine, interactive site, self-published book, travelling road revue, or a combination! If, indeed, I both cannot find descendents and decide not to do something, I will revisit this posting and share them with as many people as possible.
posted by maya at 8:16 AM on June 23, 2005