In the days of the dinosaur, when your parents were your age (or possibly your grandparents), if you wanted to take pictures, you used a camera (not the app on your phone, but a machine that was only a camera with no ability to whatsapp anyone), and inside the camera was a roll of plastic called a film. You could take maybe 24 pictures, then you took the film to a shop, waited forever, and then they gave you back your pictures printed out on paper with ‘negatives’. The negatives were what the film became after they put chemicals all over it, and was called a negative because every colour on it was reversed – so black stuff was white, and white stuff was black.
If you wanted more printouts, you’d take the negatives back to the shop and ask them to print more. Fun, huh? Well if you ask your parents, they may still have some of these negatives laying around the place. You can offer to turn them into real photos (meaning ones you can see on your phone and computer) with this activity.
In order to scan your negatives and have a digital copies of your photos, you need to have a fancy scanner, right? Not necessarily. While the quality of the scans may not be that great, a DIY film scanner can do the trick. And it’s not expensive and hard to make one! You probably already have the materials you need at home.
