What do they do with their thousands of images?!!

The probability that a monkey given a typewriter on which to bang will compose anything readable is ...

... probably less probable than the probability that a monkey will be given a computer keyboard, tablet, or phone to bang on. And the probability will then be far greater that the monkey will take a selfie than compose The Gettysburg Address or Hamlet ... or a famous Ben Hecht screenplay!

OP, can't say about them.

For me I have 100,000+ photos going back to 2012/ 13 I need to look through. If it was just my own photos, then maybe I'd be caught up some. But my archival work really puts me in a hole. About the only area I am slightly caught up in is my VHS video tape archive. I try to delete crap in-camera. If I didn't do that maybe my unedited hoard would be 140,000 and not 100,000.

Advertising archive = 65,000+ images to scan.

Audio archive = a thousands hours of R/R tapes to transcribe.

LP archive is somewhat better with only 160+ LP's and 45's to transcribe.

Small gauge film is terrible with nearly a million feet to scan.

Ephemera archive and old photos is over 100,000 scans behind.

I used to save the SD cards, but they say they die if not charged after 8 - 10 years. HDD needs to be rewritten every so often or it loses magnetism. Maybe 6 - 10 years?? SDD is said to lose data in short order if not kept charged, maybe a few months or a year. I put the SD cards on Blu-ray disc or M-disc and keep the raw material. I've lost things on the computer before and had to retrieve them from the SD cards. My only regret is not doing that from way back. I got tons of SD cards that need to be transcribed to disc now.

Placing material with other archives only goes so far. From the beginning of my institutional placements I had that worry, so I always used the 'shotgun approach' placing material around the world versus trusting one repository. I placed some important material with the LOC. They changed curators and she did not like my work and boom my material is no longer to be found on their website. I will have to do some research on that, but it all takes time digging up email from years ago. I'd like to know what the Director of the LOC has to say about it. But people being what they are in 2021, he / she / zir probably won't respond.

Improbable events do happen, Otis, yes. But this monkey thing never will happen. A completed sentence, let alone a completed novel is not even an outcome you could expect. You cannot base your expectation blindly on statistics or what rules probability theory would offer, or say that nothing is required of those monkeys.

You can speed up the experiment, since nothing would be required of the monkeys, by substituting computers with equal knowledge of words, sentences and meaning. Let a bunch of them (many, many times faster than monkeys and typewriters) run free for a while and see what happens.

But anyway.

We cannot keep everything. What's worth (in fact or in potential) to us may never ever seem worthwhile to anyone else. And even if it would, most will not be missed should be decide to discard and destroy what we deem not worth our while. Not a loss.

What however would be, and is, a burden for geneations to come is the idea that everything associated with someone or something of value must also be preserved. Meanwhile many a creator (author, painter, etc.) would turn in his or her grave and wish they had destroyed it all knowing that people insist on putting value on that which they themselves did not. Many a work now on public display nowadays (be it in a museum, or in a mega-page tome by some scholar or another) would never be allowed to by the maker, because it does not measure up to their standards, because it was not what they intended.

And that's not a matter of taste, other than that it arguably is a show of bad taste.

We need to forget.

Forget about the stuff we do not and never again will think about anyway.

Forget about the stuff we decided we want to forget the moment we made it.

And if you think your output is of value to others, you should seriously consider not just forgetting about that which you did not intend to bring into existence, but actually make sure you destroy it.

Why so much talk about "we" and "others"?

Anyway, I'm only speaking for myself. I save things because I come back to them sometimes and discover things in them I didn't see before or because my photography has changed and something that didn't fit in then fits in now. I'm not saving for others or for posterity. I'm saving for myself. Saving things doesn't get in my way, doesn't keep me from moving forward, and doesn't overburden my little hard drives.

Do you remember the case of the guy who started chronicling his every activity in a diary. Ultimately it became such an obsession that he had roomfulls of beautifully bound, matching volumes, all recording his latest activity: 'Now I am writing my latest entry... Now i am writing that I am writing my latest entry... Now I'm writing that...' - You get the idea!:mad::confused::eek::oops:

PN has a weird collection of faces!

Learn to print.

lol. Which will elicit the question of how best to preserve all those prints! :rolleyes:

lol. Which will elicit the question of how best to preserve all those prints! :rolleyes:

That, we do know, Sam. Lots of acid and lignin free boxes. Darkness. Low humidity. Constant temperature. And a lot of space.

The question then rather would be how to find time and other resources (money, for one) to print those thousands of images.

Which assumes they do anything with their thousands of images.

I don't use digital technology but I have a pal who does and, yes, he makes thousands of images. The point for him is not to do anything with the images but to enjoy the camera work as an intense interaction with visual subject matter. This process is much more interactive, gratifying, and rewarding than just looking and then moving on.

And the thousands of images stand as certificates that the heightened seeing experience has been traversed.

Sort of thinking some photos take a life on their own.

Okay, the dumbo pressing the big button, claims the credit.

It appears time saved inevitably leads to time wasted......

;)

With an infinite number of each, the probability that one exact copy of the Gettysburg Address will emerge is 100%. This assumes that the numbers of monkeys, typewriters, and eons of waiting are all truly infinite and that they all hit the keys in random order.

How can anything requiring infinity to emerge, emerge in infinity?

How can anything requiring infinity to emerge, emerge in infinity?

Indeed. 'Infinity' means 'never'.

Indeed. 'Infinity' means 'never'.

not exactly, it means 'never ending'

not exactly, it means 'never ending'

Literally, yes. Just about (if we want to split hairs, and look at meaning more than etymology, "unlimited" might be even better).

The important bit is the first bit "never". Parallel lines crossing at infinity? = They never cross (i.e. you can walk them for ever, i.e. never end walking, and not see them cross). Monkeys producing a Shakespeare play given an infinite amount of time? They will never. Et cetera.

In the context of photographic practice, it seems less about what infinity may or may not mean and how that applies to monkeys typing Shakespeare and more about whether one gets delight or satisfaction (or professionally usable results) in taking thousands of quick snaps, bursts, or even videos from which to extract a still. The alternative is having a more considered and streamlined approach and, of course, there all degrees in between the two extremes. I generally lean toward deliberativeness over randomness knowing, of course, that randomness and accident often play key roles even in the most deliberative of processes.

I've never had a desire to emulate monkeys, whether they're walking parallel or crooked lines and even if their behaviors could one day lead to Hamlet. I'd prefer writing something I actually thought of.

Yes, it is about time. Some situations do not allow much consideration, ask for a quick response. Then it helps to be able to consider at leisure later, going through what you have recorded.

No need for that, you can save time in fact, when you do proceed deliberately and only record what you want.

Then there is that happy accident thing. You may find things you like among the unintended many. Well... yes. So what? When you have what you want, you do not miss what you know not of. And you cannot go through life constantly fearing you miss all unknown things that might be or have been.

You may find things you like among the unintended many. Well... yes. So what?

So, it's finding something latent that now becomes significant and feels a budding part of me. It's being in touch with not just the photographers and artists who came before me, but my own history as a photographer. It's creating that chain or dialog that is the process of photography for me rather than a bunch of single, unrelated acts.

And you cannot go through life constantly fearing you miss all unknown things that might be or have been.

I don't. This has nothing to do with fear, at least for me. It has to do with discovery.

The fact that you think saving photos for possible discovery later is about fear is your issue.

You may find things you like among the unintended many.

This is a mischaracterization. When I took those shots that I’ve held onto over the years, they were deliberate and intentional. What’s changed is my own vision, desires, and the context within which they take on significance and within which I view them.

So, it's finding something latent that now becomes significant and feels a budding part of me. It's being in touch with not just the photographers and artists who came before me, but my own history as a photographer. It's creating that chain or dialog that is the process of photography for me rather than a bunch of single, unrelated acts.

 

I don't. This has nothing to do with fear, at least for me. It has to do with discovery.

 

The fact that you think saving photos for possible discovery later is about fear is your issue.

I think you read what you wanted to read.

What happened to your leaning towards deliberativeness over randomness?

This is a mischaracterization. When I took those shots that I’ve held onto over the years, they were deliberate and intentional. What’s changed is my own vision, desires, and the context within which they take on significance and within which I view them.

You think i addressed you personally?

What happened to your leaning towards deliberativeness over randomness?

You think i addressed you personally?

Yes, I do.

Deliberativeness comes in a variety of forms. I can have been deliberate ten years ago but not have seen the potential in a shot I took deliberately but that didn’t seem at the time to pan out. Now, I may remember a shot I took or come across it while browsing and use my intentional approach to make something out of it, seen now in a new light. I can be intentional about many other things photographic besides simply deciding what I want to shoot and how I want to shoot it. I can intentionally work toward a series that might benefit from some past photos I hadn’t found a place for. I can intentionally develop a new style for me that might now make use of ways I used to shoot that hadn’t yet appeared to me as having stylistic, thematic, or compositional potential. I try not to close off possibility.