Transform a lifetime of photographs and stories into a lasting family legacy.
BOOK A PROJECT CONVERSATION →It’s rarely just the photographs.
Photographs buried in boxes. Albums inherited from parents. Thousands of slides. Tens of thousands of digital photographs, with duplicates across hard drives, old phones and SD cards.
And then there’s everything around them: family papers, letters, children’s artwork, certificates, handwritten notes and memorabilia. All the pieces that help tell the story.
You may have already made a start.
Many clients who come to me have. Perhaps you’ve scanned some slides, started a photobook, sorted some prints or bought a hard drive with every intention of getting things organised properly.
But the collection turns out to be bigger than expected, and every step seems to uncover another decision. It can very quickly become overwhelming to know where to go next.
We take your collection, in its current form, through our five-step Archive Series. With care and expertise, we bring everything together through highly personal, specialist work centred around your family and the legacy you want to leave behind.
The Archive Series
One collection. Five ways forward.
You can work with me through the complete series, or bring me in for just the part of your collection that needs attention.
01 ASSESS
02 ORGANISE
03 DIGITISE
04 PRESERVE
05 SHARE
We believe photographs are the heart and soul of a family’s story.
Our aim is to preserve the photographs and the stories they hold together, creating a beautifully organised archive that becomes part of family life.
Not simply files sitting on a hard drive, but a living collection to be explored, shared and enjoyed now, and passed on to the generations who come next.
The story belongs with the photograph.
There is so much more to this work than organising and scanning photographs.
We take care with every stage, from digitising your material to recording the names, dates, places and stories that give each photograph meaning.
This information is embedded into the digital files, with thoughtful naming and organisation to help you find your way through the collection and keep those important details connected to the photographs they belong to.
And we give the physical collection the same attention. Corresponding labels keep originals and digital files connected, while carefully selected, PAT-tested photographic storage materials help protect what you are keeping.
So the next generation doesn’t only inherit the photographs. They inherit the story around them.
And future generations can still experience the magic of opening their great-grandmother’s album and turning its pages for themselves.
After more than a decade working with photographic collections in libraries and archives, it is a joy to bring that experience into people’s homes and work with collections that mean so much to their families.
READ MORE ABOUT MELANIE, YPL’S FOUNDER
From collections that had been waiting to be dealt with.
“The whole process of organising our photos was conducted in an empathetic and professional manner, with progress being maintained by Melanie’s guidance and gentle prompting to reach our ultimate goal of completion. We are delighted with the results of her work as we can now enjoy our photographs from this period of time, which we hadn’t even looked at since then, as they were in such a state of disarray.
L.B · SANDRINGHAM
“Melanie adopts a very client-centred approach and has an innate capacity to focus and incorporate any detail which needs to be included in the process. I found her to be very open and approachable and would highly recommend her services to any future client.
S.T · Daylesford