The short of the matter is that the average everyday person stored their
photos either in albums or in boxes. There was no redundant backup of
images. The negatives, if kept, were the means of reproducing the print.
If they thought about it any further than that, they put their really
important photos in a safe deposit box at the bank.
With digital, they will have the prints and either no backup, or if they
receive a CD-R, they will assume that is a permanent archive. It will be
stored in a similar fashion as the negatives. In a box somewhere.
I'm serious about photography, have worked in the IT industry, am very well
aware of the need for backups, and *I* don't have what I would consider
sufficient redundancy, and go weeks or months before backing up.
In reality I don't think there has been that much of a paradigm shift for
the average snapshooter consumer. They did little to safeguard their images
in the analog world, seldom had more than one print made, and often the
images were lost or destroyed through accident or just plain thrown away.
In the digital world, little has changed, IMO. The fact is, most people
don't care about their photographs until it's too late.
Tom C.
From: "William Robb" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: pentax-discuss@pdml.net
To: <pentax-discuss@pdml.net>
Subject: Re: OT: How do you store your precious moments for posterity?
Date: Tue, 2 May 2006 12:20:01 -0600
----- Original Message ----- From: "Malcolm Smith"
Subject: RE: OT: How do you store your precious moments for posterity?
And no different is the buying public in wanting the latest, that does
more
and more but is slowly becoming remote from any ability to use computers
as
they were a few years ago. Manufacturers need to create a market to sell
more and more..and most of the public read the computer jargon in adverts
or
listen to salespeople (often agreeing with things they have zero
understanding of) and are no wiser at the end.
What I am running into daily is people who have decided that they should
"join the 21st century", and have gone out to buy a digital camera. The
sales people don't know the product, but they know if you buy "this one",
they make a commission, so that is what they flog.
The consumer has been taught two things over the past 25 years:
1) Photography is as easy as point and click.
Film cameras taught them that.
2) If it is Digital, it is better.
Legions of self interested people people have taught them that.
So, the go off to Best Buy or similar and pick up a camera, and expect it
to be easy. When they blow it, they might make another attempt at the
owners manual, but they are often written by and for geeks, which leaves
about 95% of the buying public standing on the platform wondering where the
train is.
Sure, the resources to learn are out there, if one knows where to look, and
more importantly, knows what to look for, and has time to make the search.
Big iffs.
BTW, my clientele is primarily professionals: doctors, lawyers, teachers,
and university students, I am not dealing with mopes and fools for the most
part in my day to day work life.
What I am dealing with is people who have enough to do already in their
lives without learning an entire new technology.
They use computers at work, but when something goes wrong, they call up
tech support and it gets looked after. They know how to run the software
they need to run for their work if they use a computer, and don't know or
care to know, or have time to learn, a bunch of new technology.
They are expecting that the technology they have been sold will work the
way it is advertised to work, and that it will work reliably.
This is the real world outside of some jet propulsion lab or techno geek
email list that bears little resemblance to the way most people live.
I wonder if Shel, had he not discovered the PDML, or any other mail list
devoted to technology, would be as well versed and as confident. He
professes to be a jamoke about this stuff, but the reality is quite
different.
William Robb
