Start recording your family history NOW!

In my business, we print books every day, a good number of which are memoirs and family books. I feel rather sad that I don't know my own family history. My father was an extremely good writer who wrote regular columns for the papers as well as publishing a monthly newsletter which had the whole family involved, turning the Gestetner, folding and mailing. Unfortunately, nothing was ever written about his own life, his ancestors or his experiences.

I know only that he went through some harrowing times during the Second World War and bits and pieces about his rebellion against his stern authoritarian father in support of his younger brother which caused my dad to be tossed out with his young family. He is now 86 and has had Alzeimers for the past eight years and my mother passed away four years ago.

As I was the first and only photographer in the family, there exists only very, very few photographs of the early days of my parents' young family and beyond. I left home as a teenager to study in England leaving behind all my early shots (there were plenty) with my parents. However, I never returned home to settle. Those old photos are now gone. That's why I'm now driven to capture the moments I have with my dad whenever I get to be with him during my short visits from Sydney where I live. He is happier in the familiar surrounds of his own apartment in Penang than in Sydney. I have videoed and photographed him in prayer, at meals and enjoying old songs and have uploaded one of these for public viewing - a short 3-minute piece of his daily morning walk past a vegetable garden to the market. This is an example of a video which combines stills and video sequences lifted by a lovely piece of music. You can find the clip titled "One Morning With Dad" at www.fcproductions.com.au/videos.html.

Today, with all the digital cameras and smart phones, it is so easy to keep track of your family history. Today is tomorrow's history. Always keep your camera charged up and close at hand. While fun self portraits are very popular, don't forget to capture candid moments of parents and others doing their everyday thing.

Don't fill your SD card with posed, happy snaps. Mood shots are great especially when you later gather photographs together to create a story or an essay. Frame your shots – be aware of all the bits that occupy the screen and not simply focus your attention on the person. Make the screen tell us something of the person in it or how he or she is feeling. A single frame can deliver a powerful message. Make yours tell.

As you will easily end up with hundreds of shots, cataloguing your work is very important. There are free software available to help you do that. And, don't forget – Make back-ups.

Arm yourself with a digital voice recorder as well. Recording family conversations is fun and people feel more relaxed with an audio recording than have a camera pointing at them. You can later add snippets of the recordings to transform your photographs into a story in the form of a video.

It is now so very easy to produce interesting stories in video form and record your family for posterity. Furthermore, you can get very good equipment for very little outlay. My videos and stills are taken with a AUD$100 camera that does both and I paid about the same for my voice recorder. These are very small devices that slip easily into my pocket. Beware. There are many big name more expensive cameras that are so, so mediocre. Price is certainly not a measure of quality here.

In upcoming articles I will talk about the equipment and software I use and hopefully encourage you to dive into this very rewarding creative activity while avoiding expensive mistakes.

To put things together, you will need software for video editing and format conversion. There are free software available particularly from Microsoft if you are using Windows 7. Or follow the route I took and invest in one of the powerful offerings that cost as little as AUD$60 plus another $60 for a very optional format conversion software. Effort? Yes, very many enjoyable hours!

So don't just take pictures – tell stories!

Francis Chuah (a former professional photographer)
www.fcproductions.com.au
francis@fcproductions.com.au