How long do you want or expect your images to last?

[davidedric]

Prompted by another thread, but what do you think?

I know that some members create fantastic images, but do you hope or expect anyone to know or care in a hundred years time?

Perhaps just feeling maudlin.

Dave

[Manfred M]

I can remember the buzz on the internet when boxes of images taken by Vivian Maier were first discovered.

I also remember my daughters delight going through their grandparents photo albums and these are no where nearly as interesting as Maier's work.

That being said, I have started to preserve images from the places I have been to, especially when it comes to cultures and cultural practices that are either endangered or appear to be dying out. I see leaving a photographic legacy behind as something worthwhile. I know of a number of other photographers who feel the same way. Our digital images will likely disappear with us (digital rot), but well preserved photographic prints will not.

That is why I am printing at least one image a week and plan to continue doing so as long as I can. I generally print on archival paper and store them in a way to enhance print life.

[FootLoose]

I suspect all interest in my photographic work will die when I die. But then I think about all those photos that historic societies dig up to show us what our cities, countries, culture looked like 100-200 years ago, and I know they weren't all taken by professional photographers and the people who took them probably didn't expect them to last as long as they have or for anyone to be interested in them long after they were gone. So, if anything survives me and some one finds a use for it, then I'll be happy to have contributed to the archive in a small way.

[FootLoose]

That is why I am printing at least one image a week and plan to continue doing so as long as I can. I generally print on archival paper and store them in a way to enhance print life.

How do you store all your prints, Manfred?

[george013]

Some of the main differences between digital and let's say non digital: you can't see them without tools, you can't feel them physical.
You can't see them meaning you'll never be able to open a box and feel the emotion "whow, some old pictures. What would that have been?". You can't pick them up.
Though we archive so much more as before, what will be left is a selected part, mainly mantained by institutes. My pictures on the pc are valuable for me the maker. They remind me on what I've done and where I've been. They are marks in my past. Not for my children.

There're found still so many pictures by accident, positives and negatives, from the past. That won't happen digital. I think we're creating a society that will leave less as societies before. In the long time I mean.

I've family photo books, the old fashioned, starting from before the war. Pictures placed in a book with or without comments. That collection stopped a few decennia ago. A few years ago I purchaised some new photbooks, empty, on a market. I put them somewhere and are under the dust now.

George

[Donald]

"The knowledge that we are each given but a blink of a lifetime, and that all we are and all we do ultimately will be erased, should narrow our span of 'value' to the days of our own lives and to the welfare of those we care about." (p142) Guy Tal, 'More than a Rock' 2017.

[george013]

"The knowledge that we are given but a blink of a lifetime, and that all we are and all we do ultimately will be erased, should narrow our span of 'value' to the days of our own lives and to the welfare of those we care about." (p142) Guy Tal, 'More than a Rock' 2017.

Nearly thinking sciences and developments are of no value.
Just forget Ansel Adams.

George

[Donald]

Nearly thinking sciences and developments are of no value.
Just forget Ansel Adams.

What has Adams got to do with it? And it's a brave photographer who says 'forget Ansel Adams.'

I think you're missing the message of the quotation.

[Acorn]

I suspect all interest in my photographic work will die when I die. But then I think about all those photos that historic societies dig up to show us what our cities, countries, culture looked like 100-200 years ago, and I know they weren't all taken by professional photographers and the people who took them probably didn't expect them to last as long as they have or for anyone to be interested in them long after they were gone. So, if anything survives me and some one finds a use for it, then I'll be happy to have contributed to the archive in a small way.

A friend from many moons ago was famous London fashion photographer, Terence Donovan. Mention his name now and the response is invariably, Who?

[JBW]

Prompted by another thread, but what do you think?

I know that some members create fantastic images, but do you hope or expect anyone to know or care in a hundred years time?

Perhaps just feeling maudlin.

Dave

I don't expect out world to exist in a hundred years. At least not in a recognizable form.

However to return to the topic. My brother has changed location. In the packing process he found quite a few old documents that passed onto me via the web and his smart phone. I was thrilled.

Then he sent them to me.

I enjoyed both experiences.

I'm reminded of a scene in Men In Black. Where they are discussing new alien tech and the hero has just realized that he will have to get a new White Album.

I would love it if people enjoyed my images 100 years from now but if there are people, there may not be tech that will be able to read wherever my images are stored.

[george013]

What has Adams got to do with it? And it's a brave photographer who says 'forget Ansel Adams.'

I think you're missing the message of the quotation.

I don't know how to interpret that quote in the context of this thread different as I did.

....should narrow our span of 'value' to the days of our own lives and to the welfare of those we care about."

TS is mentioning a time longer as "the day of our own lives".

George

[Manfred M]

How do you store all your prints, Manfred?

The small sizes go back into the empty photographic paper box with a sheet of archival velum paper between each print. The large ones go into an archival storage box with a large piece of archival velum between them.

[LePetomane]

Some last forever and some don't. My children each have two photographs of mine that I put on metal. They display them and enjoy them. That is all I care about.

MY sister has a photograph of my grandparents from Saint Petersburg Russia, taken before they left. That one has lasted a long time.

[rpcrowe]

I have some B&W images, taken with non-professional cameras and processed and printed at a hobbyist source (quite likely the local drug store) that I know from the ages of the subjects were shot 75-100 years ago. They are still in relatively pristine shape.

I also have a myriad of color prints shot and processed in the later half of the 20th Century that are fading into nothingness. These color prints were stored in the same manner as the B&W prints which are still pristine.

Sure, there could have been ways to better preserve the integrity of the color drug store prints than by storing them in a shoe box or mounting them in an album of non-archival quality paper.

The sad thing is that many families have kept and are keeping their pictures stored in shoe boxes or mounted in cheap quality albums. It is sad to think that fifty years or so of family photographic histories are, for many families, fading away.

[James G]

Hi Dave, sorry if you are feeling maudlin.
But taking your quiestion quite seriously, I only really hope my images last as long as I do or possibly, as long as people remember me.

I don't philosophise much, but when this question has been posed in other circumstances, I'm always reminded of the poem 'Ozymandias' by Shelley ... so probably adding to your sombre mood.. all is transitory and everything passes!

Especially my photography!

[Manfred M]

I also have a myriad of color prints shot and processed in the later half of the 20th Century that are fading into nothingness. These color prints were stored in the same manner as the B&W prints which are still pristine.

Sure, there could have been ways to better preserve the integrity of the color drug store prints than by storing them in a shoe box or mounting them in an album of non-archival quality paper.

I do have "properly stored" transparencies, negatives and colour prints and these too are breaking down after 30 or 40 years. These have been stored in a cool and dark environment that is free of airborne contaminants. That is the sad reality of colour dyes in prints and transparencies (slides). These complex dyes are not stable and do break down over time.

I do have Kodachrome slides that appear to be in much better shape and a few Cibachrome prints that are still holding up well. The B&W prints, on the other hand tend to be doing well when compared to the colour work.

Modern archival papers and pigment based ink sets are a far more stable base than the products that they have replaced. This goes for both B&W and colour prints.

[PhilT]

Very interesting thread indeed.
I think that most of the people that love photography, but are not professional, ask themselves what will be left after they pass away.
I had two kind of thoughts about this. First I understood that the most important pictures for memories are the familly's pictures. I have a lot of old BW pictures of familly people that I never met, dead long before I have been born, from the beginning of the 20th century (before WW1), taken in Russia, Poland, up to the pre-digital 80's, and it is incredibly interesting/moving to see them. I understood that for a personnal point, the most important is the pictures you took from the ones you love, from grand parent to children and grand children. It's really a big fun to seat together around an old familly album, to show to our grand children how their (grand)mother/father looked when they were babies or children too. It's also moving to look at the pictures of loved ones that passed away. For that reason I try to print albums of these pictures, obviously in 100 years or less, the digital media we use now will diseappear.
On the other hand, I doubt that the pictures of landscapes, birds, flowers, all the "artistic" attemps I made, some of them I love so much, will be of any interest in the future after I disappear. Perhaps city views showing how it was in these remote times could be funny in the future. For this kind of photographs the only purpose is my own present pleasure, no more.

[george013]

Very interesting thread indeed.
I think that most of the people that love photography, but are not professional, ask themselves what will be left after they pass away.
I had two kind of thoughts about this. First I understood that the most important pictures for memories are the familly's pictures. I have a lot of old BW pictures of familly people that I never met, dead long before I have been born, from the beginning of the 20th century (before WW1), taken in Russia, Poland, up to the pre-digital 80's, and it is incredibly interesting/moving to see them. I understood that for a personnal point, the most important is the pictures you took from the ones you love, from grand parent to children and grand children. It's really a big fun to seat together around an old familly album, to show to our grand children how their (grand)mother/father looked when they were babies or children too. It's also moving to look at the pictures of loved ones that passed away. For that reason I try to print albums of these pictures, obviously in 100 years or less, the digital media we use now will diseappear.
On the other hand, I doubt that the pictures of landscapes, birds, flowers, all the "artistic" attemps I made, some of them I love so much, will be of any interest in the future after I disappear. Perhaps city views showing how it was in these remote times could be funny in the future. For this kind of photographs the only purpose is my own present pleasure, no more.

Last week I went to a museum. A collection of the first color pictures taken by or in order of a man who wanted to create more understanding between the people in the world, Albert Kahn. Clearly his images where to last for a long time. History crossed. Phil, he photographed Poland and Russia too in that time. If somebody is interested you can start here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Kahn_(banker).

Another example of refound physical negatives are the negatives of Robert Capa. I mentioned them before The Mexican Suitcase https://www.icp.org/exhibitions/the-...ing-exhibition.

It's not only the point if you the photographer think it's important the pictures will last for a long time. It's also important if our descendants can find something by accident, like we find things now. And that possibility is much less with digital pictures.

George

[PhilT]

Last week I went to a museum. A collection of the first color pictures taken by or in order of a man who wanted to create more understanding between the people in the world, Albert Kahn. Clearly his images where to last for a long time. History crossed. Phil, he photographed Poland and Russia too in that time. If somebody is interested you can start here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Kahn_(banker).

Another example of refound physical negatives are the negatives of Robert Capa. I mentioned them before The Mexican Suitcase https://www.icp.org/exhibitions/the-...ing-exhibition.

It's not only the point if you the photographer think it's important the pictures will last for a long time. It's also important if our descendants can find something by accident, like we find things now. And that possibility is much less with digital pictures.

George

Indeed. I know both, having beautiful books of the Albert Kahn's pictures from France and aroud the world. I saw two years ago in Paris an exposition of the Capa's pictures from the Mexican suitcase, including also pictures from his friends and colleagues Gerda Taro and Chim. But all these people were talented professionnal photographers, among the best at their time, it is obvious to me that their pictures (and of many other great photographers like them) will survive forever (at least for the time humanity still not annihilates itself ). I'm afraid I'm not in this category...
You're right about the point that it is what our descendants will find interesting and keep...or not.

[davidedric]

Thanks for all the contributions. A few thoughts.

I think whether or not you have direct descendants makes a big difference. If we had kids, which we don't, I can imagine they might enjoy looking at their parents or grandparents history, but I can't imagine our tribe of nephews and nieces felling the same way.

Then there's the medium. My mother has a couple of shoe boxes (whatever happened to them) of photos of relatives and friends. Some of them are real social history of life in a Lancashire cotton town at the beginning of the last century. I'm the only one interested, but at least they are there. Once upon a time I used to keep photo albums, which I still have, but I haven't produced a new one in years. I have a few recent prints and hundreds of stored transparencies, but who's going to look at those? The rest are just ones and zeroes on various electronic devices and they will surely go when I do (and having backups in the Cloud won't make a difference).

As for feeling maudlin. When you're in the back of an ambulance on your way to hospital with the siren going, as I was just a few weeks ago, you might hope for the return journey, but still your mind wanders.

As the refrain of a cheesy country and western song goes:
"It's not what you take when you leave this world behind you, it's what you leave behind you when you go".

But that goes beyond a photo forum

Cheers, Dave