Honestly this is the reason I got into film photography. I know of at least a couple people whose phones have died and they lost all their images from the past few years and they are left with nothing. I even knew of a guy who had all his kid's baby pictures and first couple years on a cell phone that he just lost one day and has no pictures left of him.
On the other hand I just recently came across some of the belongings of my Great Grandpa’s cousin (Ernie E. Hance) that my Grandma saved. He was born in 1889 and died in the late 1960’s. He never had kids so nobody was too interested in his stuff, but my Grandma’s aunt saved a box of his old photographs and writings and things. He was a great woodworker and was quite into photography himself (I found a picture of him with a Hasselblad from the ‘50’s some time, though I don’t know what happened to the photos he took with that). Many of the photos date back to the teens and some are in such good shape they could have been taken yesterday. What I mean to say is that I could keep images on a phone that will crap out in a couple years or I could make silver-based photos (and still save a good deal of money not owning a phone!) that somebody could look at in 100 years just as I can now, even if they are kept in a porch closet with no climate control at some point as Ernie's were.
Finding all that of his really was quite an inspiration. I am sure he would be honored by my interest and it came to my mind that it might not take much more than a will to make such a time capsule for those of the future to find (or a series of them!). I got thinking about what I would have liked him to add to it. It mostly came down to his personal projects and he and his friends doing what they like. I know he built a little one-man motor boat about the size of a kayak done up fancily. He has plenty of pictures of him or him and his wife but I would like to see him doing what he does best. Portraits only go so far for describing a person.
Reaction wise, I have been trying to take a picture of every great project I take on in various stages of completion and a few nice final shots. Friends are hard to photograph as they tend to duck away but I get them when they aren’t looking, and luckily that is when they are busy doing something, exactly what I am looking for. I have one of my friend cutting logs up for firewood. As it has been asserted above my very favorite photographs are of my cousin’s two year old and a somewhat poorly taken photo of my friend and I out in the woods with the camera propped up on some drift wood. The shutter wasn’t correctly adjusted yet so it is a bit underexposed. It is one of my favorites anyway. I have photographs of my brother and I on our 50-ish year old motorcycles dodging around, the first good casting from my homemade foundry held by my brother and I, photos of our childhood playground right before and during its destruction, etc. I just wish I would have started with a good camera earlier! It was all box cameras and flea market specials, but I now have a Voigtlander Avus with a roll film back which is a fine camera. I may make some kind of flash attachment.
Sixtiesix seemed to put it well. I have always been attracted to the “neglected” points of life like the alleys, garages, back corners of parks, falling down structures, junkyards, etc. Those also tend to be the most likely to vanish and change while many merely bat an eyelash. They hold just as many stories as anything else. Chances are somebody devoted years of their life to what is now only a falling down frame and yet nobody even remembers their great effort.
Anyway, excuse my rambling and have a nice day!
Brian
