Recording family photographs

Text: an original contemporary personal account-style practice extract.

At our family photograph day, I placed a removable number beside each picture before scanning it. My aunt recognised several faces but disagreed with the dates written on the backs. We kept those original dates in the record and added her corrections separately. A cousin brought a biscuit tin containing negatives, which we set aside for a later session.

The scanner made quick copies, but the conversation was slower. I recorded my aunt describing the people in each photograph, then linked the recordings to the numbered images. Her uncertainty was useful too. A confident guess written down as fact would have been much harder for someone else to correct.

From the opening paragraph, identify one thing the writer did before scanning each photograph.