On Aug 10, 2013, at 2:22 PM, George Sinos <gsi...@gmail.com> wrote: > That is the viewpoint from a collector, of course. If we don't > produce any artifacts now, there won't be anything to collect later. > > The basic concept has been brought up several times over the last many > years. Not only do people not make prints, they don't get the photos > off of their devices. I guessing most of us know someone that lost > all of the photos when a phone or computer was lost. > > Apple, Google, Smugmug and others may help a little bit as photos > taken on a phone can automatically be copied to the Internet, but when > the person quits using the account (for whatever reason) all of those > photos go away. > > If you don't take an active part in constantly backing up your photos, > and moving them to whatever new and improved media emerges, they will > be gone. > > As silly as it sounds, the fragile paper print may be the most > archival media for most people simply because it can be put in a > shoebox, stuffed under the bed and forgotten for a few decades.
Agreed! This is an interesting topic both in the general and personal sense. Having passed the half century mark and not having kids, I've been thinking about all my stuff, and, of course, that includes photography. What do I leave behind? Is anybody really going to be interested in my stuff (probably not)? Darrel & I have started cleaning house this summer, culling my personal library, giving away clothes and household items to charity. There's much more work ahead, but it's really starting to feel liberating. I don't think anyone in my family will be interested in the stewardship of hard drives with digital negatives (frankly, I don't find it much fun either :-)), but they do have interest in prints and as you'd expect, prints of family moments. Prints are mainly stored in boxes to be sure, but not all. And my family really enjoys looking at the photo books we can make through blurb. They enjoy looking at the PDML annual, and they really enjoyed looking at the Wilson book the UK PDMLers and I made for the Wilsons as a thank you gift after last year's trip to England. So this is the direction I'm headed. It's no longer a question of, how am I going to store this stuff digitally (though that issue doesn't go away obviously), but rather, let's get these photos printed up and in books for both future enjoyment and perhaps more reliable backup if you will. This also includes my own personal work--the GESOs and PESOs and photo essays I've done over the years. I'm even planning to do some quick books by year; that is, best snaps of each year since I've been back in photography. With Lightroom it's pretty easy to go through large groups of photos, make collections, then pop over to the book module and do a basic layout. Granted I may be oversimplifying a bit, but if you don't over-think the project, you can get a project done pretty efficiently. So I say get them in books and prints and move on. I'm not sure I completely agree with Robert Jackson's definition of a snapshot, which he claims is often a mistake, but I do agree snaps of family and friends should be printed up for posterity. Printing should not be an activity exclusive to fine art printmaking. Print the silly, the playful, the fun--then share! Cheers, Christine -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
