When I'm Dead and Gone ...

How will you save your images for posterity?

  • None. Just don't care.

    Votes: 16 25.0%
  • Books.

    Votes: 7 10.9%
  • Perpetual website.

    Votes: 1 1.6%
  • CD's and flash drives.

    Votes: 1 1.6%
  • External hard drives.

    Votes: 23 35.9%
  • Prints.

    Votes: 16 25.0%

  • Total voters
    64
  • Poll closed .
Prints of the most important family photos, nobody in my family is interested in my photos apart from the family/relative ones.As I have no heirs, I tried to get my 16yr old niece interested in photography but to no avail. Sort of makes me think about home movies, those will probably end up lost to time so at least with prints there is a slim chance some will be around. (not sure about the longevity of prints from my home printer but they do claim a hundred years! Lol)
 
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this is a problem photography has always dealt with. archivability of a photo has always been greatly deficient compared to that of paintings and sculpture. optimistically we get a 100 years...maybe a bit more, more likely alot less....

i imagine i am going to get rid of 90% of my photos before i die. i have thought that i would like to get maybe the top 1-2% archivally printed so that there is a bit of life for my photography beyond my death but one has to ask if it really matters that much.

cant take it with you, wont be around to care right?
 
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My widow and kids will decide if any are worth keeping. I hope they will decide to keep the old photos of family - so that family history is retained. But, it will be entirely up to them.

Too bad, but as you reach an advanced age, you realize that the thousands of photos you made for enjoyment, or to record road trips you took with your Bride, just don't matter very much any more.

Zen :)
 
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ajfotofilmagem said:
neuroanatomist said:
A select set is on Flickr, which will be around forever. Right?? :eek:

When archaeologists seek traces of the present civilization, will they find any readable photo? ::)

On the other hand, I would be happy if all SELFIE disappear from the earth. :p

I'm in the process of chiseling all my "selfies" into life size marble statues for posterity, and of course my kids are going to love lugging them around in my memory.
 
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Omni Images said:
ajfotofilmagem said:
neuroanatomist said:
A select set is on Flickr, which will be around forever. Right?? :eek:

When archaeologists seek traces of the present civilization, will they find any readable photo? ::)

On the other hand, I would be happy if all SELFIE disappear from the earth. :p

I'm in the process of chiseling all my "selfies" into life size marble statues for posterity, and of course my kids are going to love lugging them around in my memory.

LOL...I love it. Just make sure to chisel yourself with your arm outstretched with a chisel in your hand pointed back toward you. ;D
 
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Seems appropriate:

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."
 
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Feb 15, 2015
667
10
Stored on two fat RAID1 arrays in two different locations. Still also have some 30K slides (many scanned, but not all), and a bunch of 4x5 chromes. Have a few prints, but not too many.

I am a natural history museum curator, so cataloging is critical. I use a Filemaker relational database to catalog and annotate all my images including thumbnails. Images are sequentially numbered in series from 1 to currently 11,xxx; those are only the light optical images. I use NameMangler to change the default file names to my sequential series. Most of my shots are nature/natural history, so I catalog them by identification & classification plus location with GPS coordinates. Then there are some additional fields on gear used and some notes (filters, z-stacking, lighting, biological information). Natural history images are worthless without good data. There is also a hard-copy of the db information, just in case.

[I have not catalogued the SEM images that way, they are just in hierarchical directories from genus - species - museum-lot/collection-number; metadata are with the already captured specimen data. The ~13K SEM images from my last book are all on-line in an access-protected site; there are some copyright issues with specimen images, so I can't make it open-access. People can request access, but have to confirm personal use. Once I shuffled off, that access restriction can be removed: good luck suing me then!].

Some are on a stock-agency site, and royalties eventually go to a designated beneficiary. After retirement, I want to put a bunch on CalPhoto. This seems to be a good avenue for images that may be used for education, and still offers the option of contacting me (or later beneficiary) directly for any commercial application. This also eliminates the %$#&@@@ stock-agency and its rip-off.

The photo library is mentioned in my will with specific instruction on use.
 
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"And, I know no one is going to maintain my digital library, do back-ups, and migrations to new media formats or new software/file formats. At this point my thinking is that caustic editing is in order and that only the "BOB's" get printed and kept. (BOB= best of the best). So, for me I think the answer will be either individual prints or printed books."

The OP heartily agrees with this wise person.
 
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Ozarker

Love, joy, and peace to all of good will.
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Jan 28, 2015
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The Ozarks
My very best will be on canvas. We decorate our home with them. I have been looking into creating some photo books also.

I have a couple of aunts who have horded all the old photos of my grandparents and photos of us all from when we were young. Nobody ever gets to see them. It is as though letting others make copies will somehow lessen their value, which is purely sentimental anyway.

The wife and I have one child. She'll get everything I (we) have. Will she value them? I hope so because part of my intention is to preserve through photos our way of life.

Just thought about it, but it may well be that things uploaded to the genealogy websites will last longer than anything. I have a strong interest in that. Found a photo of one of my great, great grandfathers sitting on a mule pulled mower from way, way back. It was wonderful to see and copy. So, while those real close to us might not care, it may be someone further down the line will. Think I'll start checking upon what can be uploaded. Maybe even letters for those in the future. Hmmmmm. This is a great thread. Thanks for starting it.
 
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