Today's Archival Process in the Digital World

[Sirius Glass]

Today's archival process in the digital world is something like this:

 

[Besk]

If I wasn't taking photos on film of my grandchildren they would be in the same boat someday.

 

[chriscrawfordphoto]

I had the opposite experience. I have a 17 year old son. I shot thousands of photos of him as a baby and young child. When his mother and I split up, when he was 6, she destroyed all of my color film negs and most of my prints out of spite. My digital stuff, which was mostly scans of black and white photos I had done as fine art, was all safe because I had a backup of my archive hard drive stored offsite. The stuff she destroyed was almost entirely photos of our son and some of my grandfather. I can never get those photos back, they're gone forever. Dumb bitch cut off her own nose to spite her face, since those were pics of her kid, too. Not that she likely gives a damn; she disappeared from his life completely after I got custody of him in 2008. Its been years since he's seen or heard from her.

 

[AgX]

That is a interesting and merely heard point about film photography lacking back-ups aside of prints. Especially when not all photographs on film were printed.

Typically the reasoning is the other way round: I got the print and as back-up the film.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I had the opposite experience. I have a 17 year old son. I shot thousands of photos of him as a baby and young child. When his mother and I split up, when he was 6, she destroyed all of my color film negs and most of my prints out of spite. My digital stuff, which was mostly scans of black and white photos I had done as fine art, was all safe because I had a backup of my archive hard drive stored offsite. The stuff she destroyed was almost entirely photos of our son and some of my grandfather. I can never get those photos back, they're gone forever. Dumb bitch cut off her own nose to spite her face, since those were pics of her kid, too. Not that she likely gives a damn; she disappeared from his life completely after I got custody of him in 2008. Its been years since he's seen or heard from her.

1. As you stated the exception proves the rule.
2. Custody is government informing the public who the bad guy is. I got full custody of my two children and the ex refused to pay for their college education. To make things right the children got her to agree and follow through with paying for wedding and by financially helping them out whenever they need it.

It sounds like you won were thing count.

 

[Rich Ullsmith]

Sorry about your horrible experience, Chris. And glad you have the images. But the fact that it is easier for a disgruntled spouse to destroy physical possessions easier than those guarded by a password has no bearing on the archival qualities of the medium.

That cartoon is prophetic. The family snapshot as a historical document becomes more valuable with time. Rarely can one assess the value of an image at the time it is captured. Family snapshots are of particularly low value at the time they are taken . . . you were just there! and the images are handled/treated accordingly.

Digital imaging simply makes the creation, duplication and storage of images frictionless. That which is created easily and in unlimited supply is of particularly low initial perceived value. For those like Chris who probably exercised the same diligence in handling and storage as he did with paper and film, this is not an issue. But for the average Mom and Pop, it is. And now consider the average Mom and Pop who grew up taking pictures with a telephone. Easy come, easy go.

Isn't there a multibillion dollar company out there that allows the user to send photos that are automatically erased after a very short period? What does this tell us?