Bayside Digital

When and why Bayside Digital services started.

During Hurricane Sandy, Lucine was in Virginia visiting her girlfriend Yogini. They stopped by one of Yogini's neighbours, Anthony. Anthony showed us the few framed photos he was left with. All the family photos that were at Anthony's father's house up in New York were completely LOST during Hurricane Sandy. Water had rushed thru the basement of his house and all the family's irreplaceable photos and albums were GONE!

Lucine decided to have her photo collection digitized, to save from loss and damage. Her son Alex, who has graphics design background, gladly took upon himself the huge pending project. Alex digitized all 8+ shoe boxes, plus two xerox boxes full of photos with professional tools! What a relief once all those were digitized! Over 9000 analog photos were now safe and accessible anytime and anywhere, ALL archived!

They found out many of their friends were in the same situation. They wished their collection were digitized. Hence, Bayside Digital was created by the end of May 2015.

Bayside Digital is here to help you out with all those boxes of paper photos and albums you cherish. Don't you wish they were all digitized? If you tried to do it yourself on flatbed, you know how time consuming and overwhelming task it is. Also it's not of the best quality output. We can do it at a fraction of the time with high quality output.

If you keep your photos in boxes, there is the threat of damage or loss from natural disasters and deterioration over time.

Let's turn your treasured photos into digital format, to share and enjoy on every modern device. You never know when you might need them!

Let's make it easy to relive those long forgotten family and friends gatherings, vacations, parties, celebrations.

Your treasured paper photos deserve to be digitized and archived. Once we have your photos organized, you'll be able to update and add all your other digital files in one place.

Look for our specials often. We also offer special discounts and donate to non-profit organizations holding special events.

Check out blog for information and helpful tips.

I will add a new FAQ soon

Family history and memories in Armenian

Listen in Armenian radio interview about the family history of Lagikyans (Lachigian, Lajikian, Lajikyan)

Family legacies and obituaries

This year, starting with January 2nd to this day, namely April 27, 2017 I cannot remember a time in my life hearing of so many deaths!! A week or day doesn't pass by we are alerted of a death among relatives, former UN colleagues, friends, neighbors and our community.

I decided today to keep dedicate this page to people that I have known either as an aquaintance or close friends, community figures and neighbors.

Today was Hrag Vartanian's father's obituary in Toronto Star. Hrag's family is from the ancesterial home in Aintab, Turkey and as the fate of the indigineous people of Asia Turkey they were uprooted as well. I had to read about his father and I learned so much. It was interesting to find out he started with photography, passport photos and editing photos as well! However, life took different turns. Sharing here with you the obituary of Samuel Vartanian:

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/thestar/obituary.aspx?n=samuel-vartanian&pid=185219300

Down Memory Lane - Thanksgiving 1991

This morning I backed up my camera's Nov files to Master archival and Backup of Master archival external hard drive. And of course I got carried away! I checked some of the videos that were digitized. It took me over an hour, but I have to get back and watch some of the family movies soon. That's the ease and beauty of having your old videotapes digitized. You could get back to them anytime you wish to. I bet you can all relate, you have videotapes which you have taken over the years and NEVER even got to watch them. At least I am in that situation, life was too hectic between full time job, family responsibilities, there wasn't enough leisurely time to watch those tapes. All our VHS tapes got digitized (still got to do the 8mm) - I watched Thanksgiving 1991 and I am so happy to have captured, family interactions, cousins playing, Arda trying to crawl, however sad to see two people no longer with us RIP my loosahoki dad and loosahoki sister-in-law May .... Also I knew one of those years Randy had been Santa at HMACH in Bayside. Now I can tell for sure that it was in Dec 1991. Dec 1991 Paul and Randy in the living room! Such ordinary moments, however so precious looking back and reliving those days gone by so FAST!!! Also saw the HMADS January Christmas show, so beautiful! And 2008 all the Friendship Club events I had organized, we had so much fun! And 2008 Grand Central in December with the light show on the ceiling

What's the status of your family videos? If you need help getting them digitized, please message me or email info at baysidedigital.com

Writing your memoire? Here is your discount coupon code is: STMMMS56691

Let's start writing our memories.

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Documenting my family's history - Part I

I have been documenting various family, friends, work and events over many years. I am so happy that our paper photo collection as well as the VHS tapes are all on my external hard drive now, thanks to http://www.BaysideDigital.com

I owned my very first camera on my life-changing trip to the USA from war torn Beirut. The date was, February 12, 1976. I was flyer to NYC via Pan American Airlines (PanAm). The very first purchase I did on that flight was buying an instamatic camera. Who remembers the instamatic cameras? I am not sure what happened to it. I haven't come across that pocket camera over these 40 years yet. Most probably on my first trip to visit my family, I might have given to my siblings.

When I worked at the United Nations, the very first club I joined was the "Camera Club", which later on changed it's name. Then, that club was vibrant and friendly. Real professionals guiding and teaching. As well as we went on several trips. So I bought my very first professional camera, a FUJICA. Graduated from the instamatic to this manual camera.

Now that all my photos are digitized, the challenge is how to sort and weed them out. I started the process of going thru boxes and envelopes of photos documenting various moments captured over the years. We had 12 shoe boxes full of photos, in addition to two xerox full of photos I found in our storage! Also one xerox box full of VHS tapes!

Getting them digitized was the fastest and easiest part. Weeding them and eliminating all that space they occupy is the hardest and very time consuming. You look at the photos, they evoke emotions and revive memories. Some still so sweet, others remind of the change of heart of some people, you study their expressions and analyze, comparing the past with the present. Disappointments and illusions. However, the best part is, while weeding, I started making piles and keeping those that are dear to my heart. Those moments that still give so much joy to me. Others I kept to remind of some particular moment in time, which is there not for joy, but to remind of some realities and hurts. After all they were part of my life narrative.

There is the weeding of paper copies. Followed by going thru the digital files. Yesterday I spent over three hours just going thru and picking the best of the digitized photos. I plan on writing a book and adding those photos, as part of the narrative.

I will keep you posted of my progress.

I would love to hear from you about your experience: are your photos and videos digitized yet? If they are, how did you go about weeding and keeping only the ones you care about?

The glossary of happiness

We encounter many people along our life path. Some are always happy no matter what adversary they face. Others, there aren't any apparent reason to be negative, however they seem to always dwell on the negative. At times, words in translation get lost. Filling the gap in our vocabularies, specially those who know several languages. Here is a great article I hope you will find it useful: The glossary of happiness in the New Yorker by By Emily Anthes , published on May 12, 2016 http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/the-glossary-of-happiness?intcid=mod-most-popular Your thoughts and comments are welcome!

Bayside Digital Family Photo Video transfer to DVD

Get in touch with Bayside Digital to secure the legacy of your family! There is no time any better than NOW. The sooner the better. Have you secured your family photos and videos? Let's hear from you.

“This was such a fantastic discovery for me and the first I knew that I had Armenian ancestors in my family” - Hetq - News, Articles, Investigations

“This was such a fantastic discovery for me and the first I knew that I had Armenian ancestors in my family” - Hetq - News, Articles, Investigations

Scanning preserving photos family history and digitization blog

Scanning preserving photos family history and digitization blog