Why your early 2000s photos are probably lost forever

[MattKing]

When you die, your wife's next husband will throw out all you

He'll probably need someone to hold his walker while he loads the truck.

Maybe we can be more friendly if you;d start by adding your picture and real name to your avatar?

If he did that, it would blow his status in the Witness Protection Plan - apparently @pentaxuser was a key witness in a case involving conspiracy to spread English humour, using long, convoluted sentences that lack sufficient punctuation in order for them to be intelligible to most North American readers!

 

[Wallendo]

I suspect most serious (define that how you wish) photographers trying digital in the early days, took steps to back-up their digital images. I adopted an early habit of maintaining frequent backups. I bought a CD-R drive back when they were expensive. I now have useless ZIP disks. I still have most of my images.

Early in the digital era, there were multiple proprietary formats. Kodak pushed PhotoCD and it PCD format as well as FlashPix in the belief that users wanted their images in multiple resolutions. With advancements in computer power, most of us just resize higher resolution images. My first digital camera (a Kodak DC-210) used a serial interface (nothing like USB). The internet was still in its infancy as a consumer product and automatic backups were not common.

I still have slides I shot in the 1970's. Unfortunately, I have lost images from the mid 80's until the mid 90's because the prints and negatives were lost during moves. With modern technology, I would likely at least have digital scans of these photos. I now go to great length to scan and archive all my negatives

The overwhelming majority of images ever taken are not really worthy of saving. On the other hand, sometimes the images most valuable from a personal standpoint are plain images of everyday objects and people so I save them all, and selectively discard images that I am sure will have no long-term value.

 

[wiltw]

MySpace lost a lot of digitally recorded music in 2019, recorded between 2003 and 2015

History Disappeared When Myspace Lost 12 Years of Music, and It Will Happen Again

Welcome to the digital dark age.

pitchfork.com

Digital data decay and the impact on video and visual arts, entertainment

“It’s a Silent Fire”: Decaying Digital Movie and TV Show Files Are a Hollywood Crisis

Industry pros sweat the possibility that many digital files will eventually become unusable — an archival tragedy reminiscent of the celluloid era.

www.hollywoodreporter.com

And the same issues being discussed here about digital photos applys, and is of considerabe concern, about the preservation of digitally archived music.

https://www.interpares.org/display_file/ip1_dissemination_jar_lee_archivaria-50-fa_2000.pdf

The music industry has learned of the failure of hard drives storing music...20% of the stuff stored in the 1990s is already unreadable...

Music industry hard drives from the 1990s are dying, archivists warn

Hard drives used by the music industry in the 1990s are in danger of being unreadable, archivists at Iron Mountain Media have warned.

www.nme.com

The 'value', extending beyond what we as individuals or our loved ones could have...The cultural and historical impact of digital data becoming eventually 'lost', be it web pages or music or photos...

We're losing our digital history. Can the Internet Archive save it?

Research shows 25% of web pages posted between 2013 and 2023 have vanished. A few organisations are racing to save the echoes of the web, but new risks threaten their very existence.

www.bbc.com

 

[gbroadbridge]

Just another of those random periods of history where stuff gets lost.

Keeps archaeologists in work.

 

[Kino]

I must have close to 25 hard drives stored away with images and files from the early 1900's to present. The vast majority of images I have taken are represented on those drive, but they sit moribund in a static-proof box, slowly timing out.

Sooner or later, they will probably get tossed along with my negatives; such is life.

I had fun...

 

[ic-racer]

I don’t follow digital photography, so I’m not at a loss looking for missing images.

However, I did lose many C++ programs as Apple changed microprocessors and therefore obsoleted my various compiling programs in the early 1990s.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Sorry but the point I was making but clearly unsuccessfully, has nothing to do with your second sentence above nor is it a declaration that I consider the site to consist of less than friendly members. Nor was I suggesting that others should not share their pictures. It's their choice

I simply chose not share any prints I make for the reasons I mentioned and furthermore because I consider most of my pics to be private within a small circle of friends and relatives only and largely of no interest or benefit to others. By the same token I chose not to present a picture of myself as you seem to have asked that I do

When I first joined I saw many nicknames being used and under those nicknames pictures of Humphrey Bogart and others so while not seeing the point in using pictures of others I did chose a nickname which seemed to be the "done thing"

Given what has happened to privacy in the interim 20 years and what I perceive as the current trend of privacy exploitation it makes complete sense to me to be more careful than ever and I cannot see why my real name and picture adds any useful information to others in terms of the reciprocal benefit of my presence or otherwise, here on Photrio

We are probably destined to not be able to reach any agreement on this matter so like any other matter on Photrio we may have to agree to disagree and leave it at that

pentaxuser

OK I understand your concerns about security. But couldn't you at least use your first name so when I refer to your posts, I don;t have say " that Pentax user"? If we all used just our fiorst names, I think it would be a better forum, being more personal and less critical.

 

[pentaxuser]

He'll probably need someone to hold his walker while he loads the truck.


If he did that, it would blow his status in the Witness Protection Plan - apparently @pentaxuser was a key witness in a case involving conspiracy to spread English humour, using long, convoluted sentences that lack sufficient punctuation in order for them to be intelligible to most North American readers!

I honed my skills in the British Foreign Office. It wasn't easy, taking years to learn how to progress from simple sentences such as "The cat sat on the mat"

pentaxuser

 

[gordrob]

Anyone have Kodak Photo CDs? (PCD)

Funny - I came across one of these players in the back of the storage shed in a new unopened Kodak box.

 

[pentaxuser]

OK I understand your concerns about security. But couldn't you at least use your first name so when I refer to your posts, I don;t have say " that Pentax user"? If we all used just our fiorst names, I think it would be a better forum, being more personal and less critical.

That's possibly a fair point about first names, were we to be a very small number of members but I wonder about its point when nearly all first names, mine included, is shared by a lot of others. So for instance Fred, Jim etc in front of pentaxuser does not aid anyone to distinguish me from others and as far as I have seen so far, "pentaxuser" is a unique name on Photrio so serves its purpose very well of identifying me from others

When not is a small group such as in a workplace or social setting where people recognise one another and have some kind of a relationship, the use of a first name does not in fact confer any greater friendliness in my opinion although I recognise that it does to a much great extent in the U.S.

pentaxuser

 

[Besk]

I honed my skills in the British Foreign Office. It wasn't easy, taking years to learn how to progress from simple sentences such as "The cat sat on the mat"

pentaxuser

That is so interesting!

Here in the southern USA I deliberately simplified my writing and speech to better communicate with many of my relatively less educated clients.

 

[Don_ih]

that Pentax user

I'm pretty sure, if we took a poll, most people would say @pentaxuser 's name is "Pete".

 

[koraks]

OK I understand your concerns about security. But couldn't you at least use your first name so when I refer to your posts, I don;t have say " that Pentax user"? If we all used just our fiorst names, I think it would be a better forum, being more personal and less critical.

Kindly stop pushing @pentaxuser (or anyone else for that matter) to divulge personal information.

 

[MattKing]

I'm pretty sure, if we took a poll, most people would say @pentaxuser 's name is "Pete".

So what would the right name be for @pentaxpete ???

 

[MattKing]

I will, however, reiterate what @koraks posted - the decision whether or not to disclose personal information is personal to Photrio member.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

That's possibly a fair point about first names, were we to be a very small number of members but I wonder about its point when nearly all first names, mine included, is shared by a lot of others. So for instance Fred, Jim etc in front of pentaxuser does not aid anyone to distinguish me from others and as far as I have seen so far, "pentaxuser" is a unique name on Photrio so serves its purpose very well of identifying me from others

When not is a small group such as in a workplace or social setting where people recognise one another and have some kind of a relationship, the use of a first name does not in fact confer any greater friendliness in my opinion although I recognise that it does to a much great extent in the U.S.

pentaxuser

How about Fred Pentax?

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

That's possibly a fair point about first names, were we to be a very small number of members but I wonder about its point when nearly all first names, mine included, is shared by a lot of others. So for instance Fred, Jim etc in front of pentaxuser does not aid anyone to distinguish me from others and as far as I have seen so far, "pentaxuser" is a unique name on Photrio so serves its purpose very well of identifying me from others

When not is a small group such as in a workplace or social setting where people recognise one another and have some kind of a relationship, the use of a first name does not in fact confer any greater friendliness in my opinion although I recognise that it does to a much great extent in the U.S.

pentaxuser

What do you call your friends in Daventry?

 

[nikos79]

What a sad thread..
Reminds us all of the inevitability of death and fade of our existence.
And maybe we hoped that with photography we stopped and left a trace on time...

 

[Don_ih]

So what would the right name be for @pentaxpete ???

Well, if it's not Pete, it's Ian.

 

[pentaxuser]

So what would the right name be for @pentaxpete ???

Of course we do really have a pentaxpete with a vastly greater photography pedigree on Photrio who does show his photos and clearly enjoys doing so but of course he is not me.

The mystery continues

pentaxuser

 

[pentaxuser]

What do you call your friends in Daventry?

Mmmm- usually I refer to them as friends

pentaxuser

 

[pentaxuser]

Well, if it's not Pete, it's Ian.

If this is the Ian I am thinking of, his experience and knowledge of photography is so deep compared to mine that I'd drown in it

pentaxuser

 

[pentaxuser]

That is so interesting!

Here in the southern USA I deliberately simplified my writing and speech to better communicate with many of my relatively less educated clients.

I had hoped that the above might have been accompanied by something out of the smilies that represents what we in the U.K. called "tongue in cheek " as it was in that vein it was said by me

It was in the kind repartee in which Matt and I often correspond with each other

pentaxuser

 

[djdister]

If I might get back on topic, there are at least 2 aspects to not losing your photos: up to date storage and image file format. In my case, I've tried to be diligent when newer storage technology came out I would transfer files from the old storage tech to the newer one before the "old tech" got so out of date that I could no longer easily find a way to connect/transfer the old with the new. So, like I said earlier, I've continued to transfer files from everything from 3.5 floppies and Zip discs to modern hard drives and SSDs.

When it comes to digital image file formats, this also requires some diligence and staying in touch with the most common formats. JPGs aren't the greatest file format but it doesn't seem to be losing options when it comes to viewing/editing software, and the same for TIFF files. PNG files have gained in popularity but still not as common as JPGs, from my rough estimate. As for RAW files, I do have several RAW file formats that I maintain from Sony, Canon and Fujifilm cameras. Camera Raw can open all of them (for now), so I'm not panicked about conversion, but for my most recent RAW files (RAF), I convert them to DNG format for storage and editing. Many RAW files that had promise for printing I've edited and created TIFF files for printing purposes, and I do retain PSD files as well. Sometimes I have TIFF and PSD files of the same image - yeah its a duplication, but I'll wait until storage space becomes a problem or when I decide to dump Photoshop before I get rid of the PSD files. PCD files (PhotoCD) files were mentioned earlier - I do have 2 CDs worth of PCD files and many years ago converted many of them to TIFF files, but in the end all I have to do is scan the negatives myself if I really want to print something from those 2 PhotoCDs from 1996. My film archives go back to 1971 or so...

As I said, ensuring that you don't lose any images (film or digital) requires diligence not to mention cost and time.

 

[retina_restoration]

There is little point in worrying about the longevity of your photographs beyond your own lifetime. Even if your work does survive you, a couple hundred years is the most you can hope for. After all, the sun will eventually expand and consume our planet, and at that point nobody's work will remain!