BLOOMBERG CITYLAB: Laura Bliss

"How to Remember a Plague"

Excerpt: Maybe you’re someone who keeps a diary, a shoebox of old postcards, or a closet of family photo albums. Or maybe you never bothered much with that kind of memorabilia. Who’s going to sort through it? When?

ScanMyPhotos.com, a send-away mass photo scanning service, is busier than ever, according to chief executive Mitch Goldstone, as people stuck at home dust off old snapshots to preserve them for posterity.

For the family documentarian, these projects served both as comforting trips down memory lane and replacements for the real-life events that the pandemic put on hold. “People aren’t out doing all the normal things that warrant taking pictures of,” he said. “That’s why the past becomes so important because you can go and revisit all the old adventures.”