• Welcome to Photrio!
    Registration is fast and free. Join today to unlock search, see fewer ads, and access all forum features.
    Click here to sign up

After death: What shall happen to our photos?

Latest Gallery

At the Lagoon

A
At the Lagoon

  • 6
  • 4
  • 83
Afternoon Calm II

D
Afternoon Calm II

  • 4
  • 4
  • 62

Recent Classifieds

Forum statistics

Threads
203,514
Messages
2,855,857
Members
101,881
Latest member
Susant22
Recent bookmarks
0
It's often crossed my mind. I plan to have a sit down, and go through all my negatives at some point, and do a major cull. I'd like to cull it down to a few of my favourites. Make a few prints from them. Place them in three boxes. One each for my wife and the kids. As far as all my gear that I have goes, my kids can pick what they want as keepsakes, then the rest can be donated to a school that still offers analogue photography. It's nice to know that my videos will be there after I'm gone, and some of my work has been published in the odd book and mags....and some of my work is hanging in people's homes (at least until they've snuffed it 😁 ). Once my kids (and potential grandkids) have left earth, it will be like I never existed... A sobering thought.
 
Alan Edward Klein said:
You're going to spend their inheritance money in a nursing home for you? They're not going to like that.
Click to expand...

Hence, the scraping the bottom on the barrel for choice of the nursing home.
 
I look at it this way:
Do I have anything with legal constraints (model releases, work for hire, etc.)
If so, they will have to be disposed accordingly.

Anything the family might want?
Put it in a family collection.

The rest? I don't care. neither, I suspect, will the world at large :cool:


My late mother-in-law was an artist with a local reputation (at least one of her pieces was in the local hospital collection). The family kept some finished work. Fortunately, there was not much left.
 
Who cares? Nobody but me is going to place any value on the work I've made. It may as well be carted off to the dump. In fact I may do it myself and spare anyone else doing the chore.
 
Andrew O'Neill said:
Once my kids (and potential grandkids) have left earth, it will be like I never existed... A sobering thought.
Click to expand...

As a long time high school art teacher, I don't think this is true Andrew .......
 
I saw one of my matted & framed prints in the local second hand store. Somebody probably bought it as a gift, then that person moved and donated to the store as it fund raises for local charities.

Didn't look to see what price they put on it, and didn't go back to see if it sold.

It's living its own life now.
 
Andrew O'Neill said:
It's often crossed my mind. I plan to have a sit down, and go through all my negatives at some point, and do a major cull. I'd like to cull it down to a few of my favourites. Make a few prints from them. Place them in three boxes. One each for my wife and the kids. As far as all my gear that I have goes, my kids can pick what they want as keepsakes, then the rest can be donated to a school that still offers analogue photography. It's nice to know that my videos will be there after I'm gone, and some of my work has been published in the odd book and mags....and some of my work is hanging in people's homes (at least until they've snuffed it 😁 ). Once my kids (and potential grandkids) have left earth, it will be like I never existed... A sobering thought.
Click to expand...

I was wondering if my photos and videos stay available on Flickr and Youtube?
 
I'm hoping to have mine shot into outer space, in the hope that aliens will sometime find them and appreciate what earthlings did not.
 
Andrew O'Neill said:
It's often crossed my mind. I plan to have a sit down, and go through all my negatives at some point, and do a major cull. I'd like to cull it down to a few of my favourites. Make a few prints from them. Place them in three boxes. One each for my wife and the kids. As far as all my gear that I have goes, my kids can pick what they want as keepsakes, then the rest can be donated to a school that still offers analogue photography. It's nice to know that my videos will be there after I'm gone, and some of my work has been published in the odd book and mags....and some of my work is hanging in people's homes (at least until they've snuffed it 😁 ). Once my kids (and potential grandkids) have left earth, it will be like I never existed... A sobering thought.
Click to expand...

A kind word you've forgotten you've spoken, Andrew, to people may have totally changed their lives for the better and totally unknown to you that you did these things. I;m sure you;ve added plenty of value during your time here on Earth and still are. Don't be so negative. We're not just a few atoms flying in from somewhere out to somewhere else. We count. We all count, good photos or not. It's not the photos but our relationships that have enduring value.
 
cliveh said:
I'm hoping to have mine shot into outer space, in the hope that aliens will sometime find them and appreciate what earthlings did not.
Click to expand...

What if they also think in rules of thirds?
 
After my death, unless a grandchild copies the many files on harddrive (NAS), the charges storing the many bits will slowly degrade and cease to exist on this earth. I will have photo albums and some coffee table books printed, which will continue to exist after my passing, and they will continue to exist gracing a used book store shelf or some relative's coffee table, or in someone's wedding album from decades ago. The collection of negs...who knows their destiny.

Where boxes full of prints used to exist, to be of interest to historians or socialogists, that just doesn't happen much these days. Lots of photos of WWII, but few photos of Middle East conflicts or future conflicts, in comparison.
 
Alan Edward Klein said:
What if they also think in rules of thirds?
Click to expand...

That probably depends on how many arms, legs, fingers and eyes they have.
Perhaps they will see them, and think: "Thanks for the photos of fishes".
👿
 
Maybe I’ll burn my negatives like Brett Weston did, although the difference will be no one will care if I burn mine!
 
That is such a good question, and one I think about all the time. I plan to make an album of very small prints that I will leave to my siblings and their children, I will have to make duplicates of those. Also I have just bought some M Disks which are supposed to be an archival type of blu-ray disk - I will put all my digital photos onto those and perhaps scans of my negs too. It will be up to future family members to look after the albums and disks. The albums will probably outlive the disks. By the way, never keep albums and photos in basements or on ground floors in case of flooding, only ever upstairs in airtight boxes. As for all my negatives, I have to accept that no one will want them after I'm gone, so I need to start culling them now, just keeping the few really good ones I have.
 
Who cares. I’ve always found this legacy stuff to be human condition silliness.
 
I have some glass plate negatives that my grandfather, who I never met, created in about 1917-1918.
After being gassed in the trenches of WWI he was no longer capable of first line "duty' so he became a Royal Engineers photographer.
I only have one negative of military significance and that is of some German P O W's the rest are of family during the same time frame.
I print these negatives about once a year and send them to relatives.
The quality of the negatives is remarkable.
My problem is who do I leave these negatives to?
Whilst the recipients of my prints is welcomed there are no obvious successors to this generational work!
I consider my prints to be of historical value even if the value has a limited audience; but who knows?
Careful selection of old photos and negatives for future observation adds to our understanding of what and where we are!
My RC prints are expected to last about 60 years and the fibre based ones even longer.
I have lived in the , boomer, golden age , I really think I and others should leave something of worth for our offspring?
 
Just now by coincidence I have been looking through some family albums. I came to two conclusions. First, holding a physical album with photos is a very different and more satisfying experience than viewing digital images on a screen. It can be shared with others in the room but at the same time it is a more intimate and personal experience. Second, no one who is not somehow connected to the people or events in the photos really gives a damn about them. In the end it is all vanity. I hope my work will go to the grave with me.
 
We need to leave a mark. This is the only way to be remembered along with our images. Small or big is not so important, we just need to leave that mark.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Photrio.com contains affiliate links to products. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links.
To read our full affiliate disclosure statement please click Here.

PHOTRIO PARTNERS EQUALLY FUNDING OUR COMMUNITY:
Ilford ADOX Freestyle Photographic Stearman Press Weldon Color Lab Blue Moon Camera & Machine
Top Bottom