Modern photography..

Apolgies JML... i'm not a psychic... but i'm sorry for dredging up bad memories.... store your photos at work maybe?
No problems - it was just an eerie coincidence of the timing. I've naturally been pondering over it all as a matter of course anyway.

Thanks for the thought anyway.
 
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Back in the day, a camera was something to behold and respect, the Family was lined up carefully for carefully positioned shots. The film was then packaged up, and sent off to be processed. The prints received back were carefully marked up with the date and time shot, and the year.

Now everyman and his dog has a camera of some sort, so a quick snap, no thought paid to setup or positioning, just a natural photo, and it's posted on facebook photobucket, whatever, or maybe printed out on a cheap inkjet. But those images fade, and Facebook/Flickr/Photobucket, they simply were not around ten years ago, so one can assume that they will not be in 10 years time...so your online storage is lost...and your printed media is lost, and the art of setting up a photo is lost, as it's just point and shoot, with low resolution. Bad times.

Even video footage of your children is lost, as Mini DV carts are not compatible with anything, or have to be installed in VHS convertors at best, so a DV cam, recording to CD/DVD, these burns are not reliable. I found this out when trying to use my Megadrive, that uses ROM cartridges, and even that didn't work.

So I think that technology has bypassed a generation, too many photos taken, but no way to catalogue them, and too many, as many are irrelevent. Proper photographs last generations, digital photos are lost in the mire
 
I bought an early VHS camera 20 years ago. Then it cost about £800. I thought, great, I'll film the Stocks at Belle Vue, Coventry etc, and enjoy the re-runs later.
It didn't take long to realise that while I was filming I wasn't actually enjoying the moment, so I gave it up as a bad job. Apart from a few minutes here and there it's stayed in its' box since then and I just watch things happen in real time, like people used to do.
We are all suckers for technology and can easily create/store so much much film, music etc that we don't have enough time in our life to ever go through it all.
Couple that with 10,000 digital TV channels and before you know it your life is spent playing catch-up on reality.
After a philosophy shift, I now let things happen and if I remember it, all well and good. If not, it doesn't matter anyway.
 
Back in the day, a camera was something to behold and respect, the Family was lined up carefully for carefully positioned shots. The film was then packaged up, and sent off to be processed. The prints received back were carefully marked up with the date and time shot, and the year.

Now everyman and his dog has a camera of some sort, so a quick snap, no thought paid to setup or positioning, just a natural photo, and it's posted on facebook photobucket, whatever, or maybe printed out on a cheap inkjet. But those images fade, and Facebook/Flickr/Photobucket, they simply were not around ten years ago, so one can assume that they will not be in 10 years time...so your online storage is lost...and your printed media is lost, and the art of setting up a photo is lost, as it's just point and shoot, with low resolution. Bad times.

Even video footage of your children is lost, as Mini DV carts are not compatible with anything, or have to be installed in VHS convertors at best, so a DV cam, recording to CD/DVD, these burns are not reliable. I found this out when trying to use my Megadrive, that uses ROM cartridges, and even that didn't work.

So I think that technology has bypassed a generation, too many photos taken, but no way to catalogue them, and too many, as many are irrelevent. Proper photographs last generations, digital photos are lost in the mire

Digital images are not a permanent media, neither is the tape/discs they are stored on. You have to rebuild a dvd full of images, or a VHS tape, every two or three years as they naturallly degrade and become unreadable. You have to convert from media to media as new technology rises.

If you want permanent images, stick to the old ways. If you go modern, be prepared to caretake it.
 
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It wasn't until my gran (Dad's mum) died last year that my aunty had to clear out my grandparents house and effects. I received a box full of old photos. I felt really quite strange to be smiling and feeling like i was about to cry at the same time whilst going through the box. To see tiny little B&W shots from the early fifties of my grandparents and my dad as a kid (all sadly dead now) was really quite moving. (I think my grandparents must have been doing quite well back in those days to be able to afford a camera)

I wonder after another 50-60 years will people be handing down CD, DVD, memory sticks or even 3.5inch floppies (remember those, kids?) of family photos? -somehow i doubt it. Probably hand down facebook login details instead.

I think digital photography is great, but i also think it is far more disposable and may not stand the test of time like actual prints.
 
Hmmm Maybe not for all...

I have (WORM) ie. non re-writeable cd's - photos scanned and compiled mid to late 90's - remain perfectly readable.
Buy good quality media.
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just store them in a metal box, i got hundreds of my son in a safe ive got so if there is a fire then they wont be affected......well i hope!
 
Hmmm Maybe not for all...

I have (WORM) ie. non re-writeable cd's - photos scanned and compiled mid to late 90's - remain perfectly readable.
Buy good quality media.
-0-


VHS tapes written 10 years ago will be pretty much unwatchable now, degraded by the earths magnetic field and chemicla reactions. Ditto CD's, which rarely last more than 3 years.

Remember the BBC Doomsday project, where they got hundreds of kids and schools to send in stuff about where they lived? It was all written on Phillips laser discs, there virtually no players left working and the few remaining discs are unreadable.

The there was the fiasco of 2 inch video tape. The standard method used by the BBC and many studios to record music in the 70's, 20 years on the magnetic coating became detached from the substrate and if you ran it through a tape deck, the coating slewed off in a big pile on the read head and clear tape emerged from the other side. Thousands of hours of Tv and music was lost.

Not even Vinyl records last, every time you play them you degrade them slightly more, and bakelite 78's are becoming too fragile to play.

Even printed photos fade.

There is no such thing as permanent media.
 
Ah but... in the real world.
pip re- said:
I have (WORM) ie. non re-writeable cd's - photos scanned and compiled mid to late 90's - remain perfectly readable.
Buy good quality media.
-0-
I can assure you they do as stated above!

We have a series on VHS tape 'Planets' was it? Plays really well today.
Early 80's Everly Bros re-union from Albert Hall - I recorded that on VHS, still good to watch.
Don't ask about the 'DOGTANIAN AND THE THREE MUSKEHOUNDS' series ( plays ok today) grrr!

Just checked the above VHS claims at random positions - playing fine.


kid's cd collection from '96 onward pretty much all ok - those not given away or exchanged !

Photos both personally developed and printed and from high street Boots the chemist from 1960 to last week... All retained prints remain presentable.

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Store your photos and files on good quality discs. Good quality discs have about 6 or 7 layers, including protective, storage layers.

CD's are not effected by magnetic fields, thats a myth, unless you own a Magneto-Optical disc to store data, but I doubt many people have.

A good quality disc will last for years if they are stored correctly and looked after. Do not store them horizontally, store them virtically like a book.

If you pick up a CD/DVD, look closely at the edge of the disc, you can sometimes see the adhesive that has seeped out, avoid using them because they will be prone to delamination and oxidation.

If you can, get yourself top of the range Verbatim discs. They are the rolls royce for storage data length spans. They claim to have a lifespan of 50-200 years!

They are still able to read the first ever CD R discs from the early 90's
 
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