too many pictures too little thought

<p>It all started with the mass marketing of 35mm cameras in the 60s but because of price and complexity users tended to be more serious and the end of the roll always loomed. And everything got printed. Today with digital we have entered a truly mad world of happy snapping where everything is taken with little thought and little is saved; where will all these billions of images be in the years to come, come to that where are they now!<br>

I mourn the demise of the family photo album and treasure the few box brownie images that have been passed down. I wonder where families will find their visual histories from now on.<br>

I have boxes full of negs and slides from the early 60s and have been scanning my way through thousands of images, backed up of course, but honestly wonder if they will be retrievable 50 years from now. As I said the rot started in the 60s but at least we have negatives and slides that have survived in reasonable shape barring some bad processing here and there. As for digital it only seems it can get worse.<br>

I came from a middle class English family before WW2 and we had one box brownie. I should think we took one roll a year maybe two max and pretty well all pictures were special occasions and carefully composed. And most have survived and have value, more than can be said for the millions/billions of images from mobile phone cameras and digital point and shoots.</p>

<p> </p><div></div>

<blockquote>

<p><em>"most have survived and have value, more than can be said for the millions/billions of images from mobile phone cameras and digital point and shoots."</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>Jerry, I understand your nostalgic feelings but it can also be argued that the photos taken today are of equal value to those who took them. <br>

<br>

A friend of mine recently inherited boxes of photos and negatives from his father. He kept a few which meant something to him and tossed the remaining. When asked why, he replied that there was no point in keeping pictures that meant nothing to him containing scenery and people he didn't know. </p>

<p>While I get the sentiment (and value albums with photos), it's not right to assume that a digital photo-album online now has less value to others. It may have equal value to other people, and they might find your preference for prints weird anachronistic thinking.<br>

The fact that in the old days people took less pictures does not make them more or less valuable. Maybe just more rare, but their value (certainly for family photos!) is in the eye of the beholder. And that beholder might be happier with 20 pictures called "<em>hahahah how much fun we had on june 20th, 2012 on the beach</em>" than one carefully framed photo of the entire family at christmas. Times change, and you don't have to feel it's for the better. But that doesn't necessarily mean it's for the worse either.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>it can also be argued that the photos taken today are of equal value to those who took them. <br /><br /></p>

</blockquote>

<p>Except that most people today don't value them enough to have them printed.</p>

<p>Steve, today's generation only knows of viewing on screen so why should they bother to print? Anyone these days can buy a 27" or larger flat screen TV and dedicate it to photo display wherever they please in the house, or on any number of portable devices that most people carry daily. The perceived value of printing is only in the minds of those who value prints. </p>

<p>We have three grandchildren, one is 25, the other recent ones are 3 and 1.5 - quite the spread! We have albums full of prints of the 25 year old as a child, all taken on film. I'm on my third album of the newest ones, all taken with digital cameras. I regularly - almost weekly - have prints made from digital at Costco because of their cheap prices (8 cents on sale!), way cheaper than those made years ago from film. So our family will have actual prints of the wee ones and other family occasions, even though they are but a fraction of the photos I do take. And I'm having fun doing it too!</p>

<p> </p>

<p>We've reached a place where the print is not the photograph. It's a print OF a photograph. This conversation happens frequently here in various forms and it is always fun. I share the OP's perspective that most photos taken today will ultimately be lost, but quite frankly most photos taken in the 20th century are already gone, thrown away as people move on and those that follow don't (can't?) have any sense of the vaule of a particular photo, or shoebox full of photos for that matter.</p>

<p>I believe that digital photos have a much better chance of survival but not in the ways we're used to preserving. When I was young my father had albums all over the house - one copy, that could only be passed along to a single individual. Now, with digital, sharing is easy and multiple copies of libraries are out there, at least in my family. I've told the story before about scanning all of my father's photos, and all of my own film up until I switched mostly to digital. Every member of my family (parents, siblings, childrens, nieces & nephews) now have their own copy of all those photos and I frequently see them come back in some creative video or slideshow. That was not achievable up until the past decade, and it changes the game completely. The single copy of the negatives & prints? They sit untouched now in my "photo room" in my house. My challenge will be to get someone in my family to take them on when I "move on" myself.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Steve, today's generation only knows of viewing on screen so why should they bother to print?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>To have something which still exists long after the files are corrupt and/or can't be read.</p>

<p dir="ltr"> <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2067581/Stripped-youve-seen-Pictures-Tower-Bridge-construction-dumped-skip.html">http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2067581/Stripped-youve-seen-Pictures-Tower-Bridge-construction-dumped-skip.html</a></p>

<p>In 1969 I developed and printed my first photos, as a college student. I intended to save every frame for all of my life and hopefully hand them on someday to children/grandchildren who would appreciate and maybe even share them with others. But now that I'm retired in my mid-sixties, the reality is very different. Those painstakingly taken, developed and printed 12 exposure rolls of 120 film aren't revealing anything up to the esthetic quality or documentary value of recent dslr work. I have moved to a different place, visually and technically. Frankly, poorly composed photos of past mundane subjects aren't of much interest to anyone, including myself. The occasional exceptional print hangs on a wall and is treasured at our place, or the kids'. Much of the old photography will probably end up in a landfill. For me, as just one serious amateur among the millions, digital capture and storage is so much better. And simple deletion of unwanted files is less toxic to the environment.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>most people today don't value them enough to have them printed</p>

</blockquote>

<p>That comes across as really condescending. Pretentious, even. "People" today value the photos they like by <em>actually looking at them</em>, and sharing them - often instantly, across the globe - with their friends and family. Dismissing their valuing of photos as meaningless because they use a different and much less limited medium than you - that says that <em>you</em> have a lot to learn about the value that photos can carry. Is all your financial value in the form of gold under your mattress, or do you also keep some intangible digital funds in a bank somewhere?<br /><br />My niece is getting married in a month or so. I just accompanied her on a visit to the pro hair and makeup artist that will be handling her for that day. She spent two hours in the chair on a dry run, and I did some before/after, documented the process, and did a few quick glam shots for her to enjoy with her friends. She's delighted. Some of the images have already made wide-spread rounds among her peers, the future bridesmaids, etc. It would never occur to her - at this stage in the process of enjoying the images - to <em>print </em>them. What for? Why would she carry around a bunch of paper to show people when everyone she'd share them with have already seen them, enjoyed them, commented on them, and passed them along?<br /><br />You need to look at this from the perspective of someone who finds <em>great</em> value in the photographs, but who finds burning through a bunch of paper and chemistry in order to physically show images to a limited group of people (only those people with whom she can be in the same room, or to whom she <em>physically mails them</em>) to be absurd and to <em>limit</em> the way in which she can share and celebrate the photos and the moment in her life that they're all about.<br /><br />I shot about 150, and set her up with a view of 36 that I liked. There was <em>great value</em> in my having the luxury of weeding out eye blinks, awkward expressions, and the rest. The images now exist in perfect copies on half a dozen different different systems and media in multiple locations. Likely one or two will be printed along the way, but those will be valued under different circumstances for different reasons.</p>

<p>Steve - I think the notion that all digital files are going to devolve into an unreadable pile of bits is a little far-fetched. Quite frankly its much easier these days to preserve a digital file than it is to preserve a print or an album. But we've had that discussion before.</p>

<p>Steve - I think your post on the find of the Tower Bridge photos proves the opposite point you intended. Those photos were for generations lost except to the one person that could see them. Now? They are firmly part of the digital realm, available to everyone who clicks on that link and sees them for the first time. Those photos are now valuable. Before they were trash.</p>

<p>This thread is about the downside of being human. My way is better than yours. It's "I feel better about myself and my beliefs and the myths I cling to as long as I can put you and yours down." No different than "I'm going to heaven and you're going to hell." It's also Internet claptrap.</p>

<p>As far as pictures with too little thought, that's the way a lot of pictures are supposed to be. Snapshots. Not about thinking. About feeling and capturing a moment for a variety of reasons. Think of it like the difference between writing a note (which also isn't done much anymore) and writing a great novel. Not every picture is trying to be a Weston. Some are meant to be shared once and then tossed. Preservation can be an obsession. It's OK to live for the moment and have that include a pic that gets seen and then discarded.</p>

<p>Good morning Fred. Having a good day?</p>

<p>I think your point is exactly why lots of people like the internet, and especially this forum. Its about a conversation - you don't have to agree with the other person but you share a common interest and can have a discussion about it. That's the point of the thing, isn't it? By the way, I agree with your observation about the motivation for a lot of shots - they don't all have to be deep thoughts and consideration.</p>

<p>Jerry. I am eighty years old. I feel your pain but I just can't quite reach you. I am getting too much pleasure out of my three digital bodies, photoshop, and lightroom. I shoot swim meets, car races, landscapes, people and events. I do my own processing and maybe printing has died but I get the best prints of my life today, now, this minute from my own printer. The colors are marvelous. I too have boxes of slides and older prints that may never be recovered unless my kids do something about it after I die. I have made so many mistakes in life that I can't remember them all. I stay away from the good old days except for my aviation. I love to shoot airshows. I wish I could still fly. But, I can't. So I take pictures, swim workouts, and live for what I can do today. Nobody has ruined photography for me. I take great pleasure in it. After a productive career in aviation, I formed my own photo business and quit when I was 72 because it was wearing me out. It gave me a great exposure (bad pun) to photography that really, to this day improves my quality of life as an old man. At the behest of my kids I have been doing some geneology but it depresses me, so I really don't care what all those dead people in my background looked like outside of passing curiosity. Each day is precious. Yesterday is but a dream. </p>

<p>David, I engage in conversation all the time. I love it, online and live. That doesn't mean I have to think highly of conversations that are premised on "my way is better than yours." I'm fine disagreeing with others and having others disagree with me. That's something very different from not thinking much of the approach to a topic.</p>

<p>Hey Jerry, I hope you'll come back to your thread and read these responses, then join in the ongoing dialog. I'm seeing some real refreshing wisdom here. We're all mortal. Let's enjoy one another's images, and keep moving!</p>

<p>Digital just gives us more choices. I still make prints on my own printer. I have albums for my hobby photos and my family photos. I also have them in my computer. I have a few family prints in my wallet. My wife has a smartphone and an i-pad and she keeps her vacation and family photos on them. I also make prints of family photos for family members, and I make 4x6's and 8x10's of hobby photos for friends and family.</p>

<p>It's ironic that all the years that I shot slides I couldn't get prints as good as the slides. Now that I make my own prints I can't get a computer image as good as my prints. The i-pad is closest to the prints, but not quite there yet.</p>

<p>Hopefully the photographer is taking photos of something they care about that will have the same level of care and consideration to preserve them when the photographer passes on. There are photographers in society who literally have no living relatives or anyone else to take control of their affairs.</p>

<p>If you're a loner, content in your solitude taking photos of things you love that aren't pictures of people such as friends and relatives, there's not going to be much incentive by those to keep and preserve those images whether printed or hidden on a hard drive when they are taking inventory and tossing the photographer's possessions because there's no one to claim them.</p>

<p>Keep in mind those that would riffle through someone's belongings after the photographer can no longer care for them self or has passed on are most likely going to think twice about a printed picture they have in their hand over an unmarked or marked CD or mobile tome device.</p>

<p>I know for a fact living in Texas all my life that there are folks who have no immediate close friends or living relatives that when they died leaving no will or could no longer care for them self required authorities to sort out their belongings and toss most of it in the trash, including pictures and CD's while selling off all valuables like electronic devices to the lowest bidder usually some huge clearing house.</p>

<p>It's like that person never existed. </p>

<p>a clarification --- when I say 'too little thought' I don't mean every shot has to be a masterpiece but at least should be of something worthwhile and with some composition not aimlessly shot simply because you have the ease of operation and storage available. On digital archiving all I can say is I have an old Mac under my desk right now with files I can't retrieve and a friend was moaning the other day about inability to move files between recent PCs. In 50 years I suppose there will be some high end technology to retrieve old digital files providing the cards or hard discs haven't been long ago junked or memorable pics lost in a sea of pointless images.</p>

<p>I suppose that at one time during the first half of the twentieth century people were concerned about there being too many of the then few cars on the limited road system, but things have changed greatly, cars have become much less rare and most of us cannot do without them.</p>

<p>The increasing popularity of photography using a variety of devices is a fine addition to how we communicate with others verbally or via the written text. I think that the main value of contemporary photographs is their immediate value to us and for this communication with friends, associates or anyone who may be interested. If we don't use them actively in that way now we will just abdicate from their effect, as it is unlikely they will have any great value to anyone in the future. We can print a few of those that we feel are some sort of landmark of our lives or imaginations, but most will likely have little value to anyone in future. I still do some B&W film photography and that, and its well fixed and washed negatives I consider as perhaps the best long term record of what I am doing. On the other hand, I think most photography is valuable as a very present time activity and provides a great support and complement to other means of communication (speech, writing) with others. </p>

<p>More people than ever are enjoying photography. Why is this so terrible? </p>

<p>And another thing that has bugged me for years about backup digital storage devices as they get smaller and smaller is that there isn't much room to write a description of its contents or a way to securely affix a written list to reference each file and what it represents.</p>

<p>When I first got serious into desktop publishing teaching myself on the job coming from old school graphic art processes working for an ad specialty company who was attempting to transition into a full on digital process/management workflow setup, it dawned on me I had no way of looking up all the invoice numbers associated with a piece of finished artwork that I had save to a floppy disk (it was 1998). No room to write what was contained on that disk. YIKES!</p>

<p>File cabinet's (7 across, about 5 feet high) had the invoice number ranges visible on the front of each drawer, but we still had to thumb through each job jacket to get to the original artwork associated with the invoice number. However, the file cabinet was its own visible representation of what it contained due to the fact that it was in the art department. You knew by just looking at it what those file cabinets were for. Get rid of the file cabinets and replace it with a blank hard drive sitting on a table and its anyone's guess what it contains or what it was used for.</p>

<p>This is one of the main reasons I got out of digital graphics as a profession because I saw my job description getting more and more complicated as more and more responsibility for managing digital data was placed on me and me alone.</p>

<p>Please don't anyone of you recommend some damn DAM book to read on how to do it. NOT INTERESTED!</p>

>>> More people than ever are enjoying photography. Why is this so terrible?

 

Good question. A lot of people sure feel threatened...