The Lives in Photographs
A Genealogical Visualization Using Photos
The Story of an Individual, Family and Place
The internet revolution has captured the information of the world of the past 10-30 years in an astonishingly quick manner. Much of that information has been contributed by individuals: the posting of thoughts, ideas, pictures, drawings, artwork, photographs etc in a cloud that can be accessed by anyone, at anytime provided they have the means. Only recently has there been a push by larger NGO's and companies to catalogue and preserve the information of the distant past. This information of the "past" (material not catalogued or created digitally) contains stories that are mirrors to our actions and reminders of our bond to the living and the dead without which there is a sense of disconnect from those we knew. Take for example the loss of a close relative. Many of the reminders we use to light our memories are persoanl artifacts the deceased left behind: a jacket, a letter, trinkets, books, pictures. In most instances many of these artifacts are not preserved unless they have specific sentimental or historical value. Many times they are donated, lost or at worst discarded. What we lose is the story of an individual and a family.
The Lives in Photographs is a project that hopes to pass along the story of an individual and his/her family through the visualization of the family's photographs, all of which in turn will be preseverd in a digital format.
The Lives in Photographs starts with an individual family member and orders the photgraphs containing him/her chronologically. If a photo contains a member of the family and a user rolls over that photograph, that family member's photos, again arranged chronologically are revealed. The process continues for all family members present in the photos provided.
By placing the photos in a chronological order, The Lives in Photographs hopes to illuminate both the story of the person and the story of the place.
The Plan of Attack
To create The Lives in Photographs the following plan will be utilized:
Backend develoment
- Create a metatagging system to define individuals in the photo, location of photo, description of photo and date taken.
- Create database to store all information
- Create an xml file from database to parse
- Parse and display in flash
- Overall look and feel
- Overall navigation
- Navigation of browsing photos
- Design of supplemental information
