Contributing to the Gallery

The vast majority of the images and other media in our collection, including that presented here on our web site, comes through the generosity of our members. In most instances, photographs and such are loaned to us, and we create digital copies and return the originals. Material that we collect is used on our web site and in various print publications that we produce, including The Cachaletter.

If you have items you'd like to contribute, there are a number of ways that you can do that. We've listed the options below. If you have any questions, please drop an email message to curator@cachalotalumni.org, and we'll do our best to answer them.

Bring Them to an Event

For most of our events (excluding the Family Camping weekends), someone from the History Committee will be on-hand with a digital camera and scanner, and will be available to scan or photograph your pictures or memorabilia for you. This works best for smaller batches of images, as there's a limit to the amount of scanning we can do in the time available.

Note that in order to scan many photographs, we may have to take them out of albums/frames to get a good scan, and for slides we will need to remove them from a carousel. If we need to do this, we take extreme care to keep your items unharmed, and to return them to the album, frame, or carousel exactly as you provided them. If the items can't be safely removed from their mount, we will err on the side of caution — we'd certainly much rather have a less-than-stellar scan than do any damage to an item!

Loan the Items to Us

For larger batches, we have borrowed the items for a short time to get them scanned in. Since we're all-volunteer, this can take several months with large batches, although we try to make this as quick as possible. Your items will be well cared for while we have them, and we will make all the arrangements to get them returned to you.

Scan/Shoot it Yourself

If you have access to a scanner, or are taking digital photographs yourself, this is the most straightforward thing to do. Scans don't have to be perfect (there's no need to do any fancy color correction or touchup -- we have all the tools for that and can handle it), but we do like to see scans that are:

• At least 1024x1024 in size, although we'll take smaller if that's all you have. 300dpi scans are what we usually do for prints, 1200dpi for slides.
• TIFF, JPEG (with the quality setting as high as possible for scanned photos), or Adobe Photoshop format
• Full color (even when scanning black & white images!)
• For digital photos of memorabilia (patches, etc.), a picture taken against a white or other neutral background is best. If the item isn't a standard size, including a ruler in the shot is also appreciated.

The only exception to the "no fancy settings" guideline is if you're scanning slides, and you have a slide scanner with built-in dust and scratches removal (like ICE), which we use if the slide has noticeable damage when scanned. If you don't know what this is, don't worry about it.

Once you've scanned in your pictures or taken your digital photos, just drop us a line at curator@cachalotalumni.org, and we'll discuss how to get them to us. We can do this via the web site, US mail, or several other methods, depending on what's most convenient for you.

Donate Them

Finally, some people have opted to donate photos and memorabilia to us, something that we're very appreciative of. If you have material you'd like to donate, please contact our curator so we can discuss it further!

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