Slides, Anyone?

December 13th, 2011

   One of the things I do to cobble together a career is give gardening talks to clubs, organizations and garden shows.

   Not that long ago, the preferred way to do that was to show lots of pretty photos on a screen via slides — those little 2-by-2-inch cardboard squares lined up in a circular tray sitting on top of the projector.

George's now-obsolete collection of 2,700 slides, 20 slide trays and two slide projectors.

   They’d jam up every now and then, and the bulbs sometimes would burn out, but for the most part, it worked.

   Then along came PowerPoint.

   All of a sudden, other speakers began plugging their laptops into sleeker, brighter projectors and doing programs that moved, sang and allowed for all kinds of cutesy, creative stuff.

   It also opened the door to a new generation of snafus, freezeups and shutdowns, which if you’ve operated any computer for long, know is both certain and unlimited.

   I told myself I’d convert to PowerPoint only after I’d seen 10 straight programs done by other people come off without a major glitch.

   That never happened, but I ended up switching anyway as slide technology went the way of the typewriter, 8-track player and VCR.

   Now I’ve got 20 laptop/PowerPoint programs, ranging from “Design Ideas Worth Stealing” to “How to Grow Dinner” to “Survivor Plants You’ll Have a Hard Time Killing.”

   I’ve also now got about 2,700 photos on slides, 20 slide trays and two slide projectors that I really have no use for.

   That’s where you come in.

   Does anyone out there know of anyone who would be interested in these things?

   I’m thinking this collection could have some kind of new life other than just going to someone doing garden talks by slide projector (a pretty slim crowd these days, I’d imagine).

   I went through the slides and had several hundred of them scanned into digital format so they can be published on web sites or used in PowerPoints.

   It’s actually a nice collection of plants and gardens. The 2,700 images include plant close-ups, local private gardens, public gardens both local and beyond, photos of my yard in various seasons, instructional images (mulch volcanoes, seed-starting how-to’s, examples of misplaced trees, etc.), hardscaping, tools, turfgrass and even weed pictures to help with ID.

   Some came from growers and organizations such as the Netherlands Flower Bulb Information Center and All-America Selections, but the vast majority of photos were taken by me over the past 20 years.

   You’d probably recognize some of them from The Patriot-News or my slide programs, if you’ve ever been to any.

   The slide trays and projectors are in good shape and perfectly useable.

   I’m willing to take offers for all of this in one shot or sell it in bits and pieces. I’d just like to get a little something in return, and I’d especially like to see it all repurposed in some useful way. I suspect a lot of slides and trays are being trashed these days, and I don’t want to go that route.

   So if you have any leads, shoot me an email at george@georgeweigel.net.

   Also let me know if you’ve ever seen 10 straight PowerPoints happen without a glitch.