My father-in-law was a professional film editor. As you can imagine, his photos are excellent. He taught classes for many years, won contests, and gave travel talks at the libraries in the area.
My husband (also a semi-professional photographer) took all his film, slides and scans when he died, with the intent to sort it and find a home for things. Unfortunately, my husband passed away only a few years after his dad. I am left with an entire bedroom full of prints, slides, negatives and digitized media.
I’d like to do the right thing with it. My lovely FIL traveled the globe and shot images everywhere. However, I know that his pictures of Cambodia are probably like anyone else’s pictures.
Should I throw it all away? Are there stock photo houses that would like it? I’m not looking to make money (although I wouldn’t turn it down if offered). I’d just like to see his life’s work go somewhere. There is only one brother and he has no interest in any of it.
Advice?
Depending on your time to dedicate to it, photo books could be a way to share the work. I don’t know if it’s worth the effort to sort/organize it all, make sure everything is scanned, and design it, but if you have the time it could be a good way to keep the memories alive.
Depending on the content it could also be marketable for sales or finding a publisher who’s willing to handle it. It still puts a lot of work on you, but if the emotional effort of going through all of it is manageable and you have the time to dedicate to it, you could have a good product in the end for people to view.