True photographic freedom.

[rossb]

<p> Well, I virtually never even look at pictures online myself but I thought I would look at yours. You are very skilled and I figure you should do what you want. Probably having people with no skill or little skills rating your pictures is not a good idea. What are they going to tell you anyway. The only thing I can think of about the destroy the file idea is maybe you should destroy the file only if you sell the picture in that manner. However whatever your thinking on it seems fine to me. I do not show my pictures except to family and friends and in my camera club. However I do not want to destroy my negatives. My daughter is going to get a Masters in Library and Archival Science and she wants to archive my snaps. I have not told her she wants to do that yet but I will down the road.</p>

[michael_dimarzio]

<p>True photographic freedom for me would be to buy a dSLR that came with all of the images I wanted already loaded in the SD card. I could point it at a scene and a relevant seen would pop up saving me from taking the photo.</p>

<p>But seriously, I think I understand what you're saying, and how destroying the original fits. But I would ask you to save the originals, just do a mental shred. Someone after you may find the joy and value in them.</p>

<p>To paraphrase my hero, "I am the great zenholio!".</p>

[simon_crofts]

<p>Try to make sure you don't accidentally crumple your print, or get it damp.</p>

[mrraz]

<p>Simon, whether crumpling, moisture application or other unintended detrimental change to any print, the print was printed and will exist for some finite period of time in one state or the other depending on how careful I continue to be. With some luck I will sell a few along the way. As a New York cab driver told me way back in the Summer of '65, "when you step off the curb, you're in play." Color me jaywalking.</p>

<p> </p>

[john_macpherson]

<p>I feel a wee bit sad Glenn.</p>

<p>After my own 40 years of image making, I'm teaching photo classes to digital camera owners and stressing their obligation to future generations to ensure their work survives beyond a hard drive so it can illustrate their personal story of the first part of this century.</p>

<p>They seem not to have taken on board the irony that in the last century and the one before, cameras were in the hands of relatively few people, but a lot of work survived because the media endured. Today we have a situation where almost everyone has a camera, but the longevity of their images is questionable, unless some precautions and conscious decisions are made to protect an archive.</p>

<p>I was fortunate that when growing up my family had cameras, and way before that in the 1800's my grandparents could afford cameras and to pay photographers to take images for them, so we have a small record of family and circumstance that we value and which will inform our successors.</p>

<p>Whilst I respect your decision, and applaud your abilty to free yourself, I cant help feel a bit sad that you deprive others of your insight to the world you inhabited.</p>

<p> </p>

[michael_dimarzio]

<p>John-There wasa snap shot taken in the streets of Nevada City California during the height of the Gold Rush. People were picking through the gravel in the streets. It turns out that the gravel used to "pave" the streets was a high grade ore.</p>

<p>A scene like this was probably totally inane in it's day. But decades later it gave a nice flavor of being there.</p>