Time Machine

I recently had the pleasure of looking through about 2000 old family photos.  The photos were from my father's side of the family, members of which were historically farmers.  A surprising number of the photos were from the late 1800s and very early 1900s.  Because there were so many photos, I was able to quite literally watch some people grow up and have families (including my father).  Within these time machine-esque photo albums I was also able to watch certain home grown projects take place like a rather extensive homestead addition and the construction of a garage and barn.  I was also pleasantly surprised to find that they had photographed some of the local industry, to include the photos below of some of my family members at work hauling and milling lumber for various projects. 

A Great Uncle Handling Horses For Some Loggers
Check Out Those Wheels!!

This reminded me that taking photos of a project during its construction can sometimes be an invaluable tool.  I have started taking more photos of my projects than I used to mainly due to the creation of this blog, however, those photos have come in handy for other reasons on several occasions.  I was recently working on some Greene and Greene style finger joints for a newel post in my home and in being able to look through some photos of a similar project I did last year I was able to recreate and tweak the process of constructing them in order to get the joint completed in a timely manner.  On another occasion, some photos I took of our house before I put up drywall helped me make sense of some odd readings from a stud-finder (obvious stud joke intended).

Unfinished Jatoba Test Fit

Test Fitting A Newel Post Base

A Nod To Greene and Greene
Finger Joints

Yet another reason I have started taking so many photographs, is that they are now free to develop!  With the use of my handy dandy digital camera (no film!?!), I can take thousands of photos and store them on a hard drive to be retrieved any time I deem necessary.  I can even bore my family to tears with digital slideshows of my projects right on my television!  One last benefit to taking lots of photos is that some day in the future people can look at through this little digital hard drive time machine (assuming that we still use similar digital formats) and say, "HA! Look at that idiot, I'd never cut a joint THAT way!"

Milling Lumber 1952 - Mr. Schwarz Eat Your Heart Out,
That Is A 6" Slab Of Fir!