Legacy format decision

[Stevejack]

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24 minutes ago, Deeetona said:

- Dont assume that other people (including your grandchildren) find your life and photos as interesting as you do

- Technology moves on. How common is it for computers to have a CD ROM drive nowadays? Not so long ago, it was the storage medium of choice. Not saying they dont exist anymore.

- How many different standards did just Apple go through? Also not so long ago SCSI connectors were common. Anyone under 40 knows what that is?

I believe if we "leave behind" one or two well curated photo books with some liner notes about who is who ("all these dudes in their 50s with a beard, horn rimmed glasses, ironic hoodies and sneakers, Granddad! How come you all were to infantile during your midlife crisis?")

You're talking about methods of accessing files, I'm talking about files themselves. Backwards compatibility for file formats is very strong, and for formats as ubiquitous as jpeg or tiff the industry isn't simply going to forget how to open those files in 20 or 30 years. It's a non-issue.

I couldn't care less if my kids delete all my photos after I die. They only exist because they have meaning to me, and that's the extent of it. However, I DO care very much if I let them down by not allowing them a means to access their own family history should that desire be there. That would be a monumental failure on my part as a father, and would be a result of nothing other than laziness on my part. 

[Deeetona]

Just give them the files now.

[Stevejack]

6 minutes ago, Deeetona said:

Just give them the files now.

I can't tell if you're trying to be clever or truly naive, or perhaps still a bit wet behind the ears. I'll assume it's the latter, which (funnily enough) is exactly the reason why I don't give my kids the files now. 

[TeleElmar135mm]

... use DNA -

Here a link:

 

 

But don't be surprised if a dino comes out  

[rogxwhit]

3 hours ago, andybarton said:

With due respect, unless you are Garry Winogrand, or a photographer of his stature, I am guessing that very few people will be interested in your digital files when you’re gone. It’s a simple fact of life.

As said.

[prioritet]

I talked about this topic with the staff of the municipal city archive. they will be happy to accept any photo materials, but preferably with the photographer's explanations about the place, time and content.

[hoolyproductions]

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I used to worry about this around 10 years ago, wondering how to make my photos available after my passing, and being a little distressed at the idea of them being lost forever.

Nowadays I see it a little differently and simply accept that my archive is mainly for my own pleasure until I have shuffled off this mortal coil and I will need to let (most of) them go like everything else. I do still think about some of the family snapshots that I am sure my daughter would like to see in her own 'autumn years' so I would like to get around to making some kind of photo book(s). 

For my pictures that I consider 'art' rather than family photos - maybe I could try and make a smaller book of the very best (but I am terrible at curating my own photos, I just go around in circles )

[rogxwhit]

All this stimulates the question - why do we do what we do, what's it for, who's it for, what's its nature, what's its purpose?  Something that it's worth being clear about.  We're all mortal, our Earth is mortal, it's all just a flash in the pan. 

That doesn't mean that we're not allowed to have some fun along the way.  A main thing, I feel, perhaps the only one, is to be as fully conscious of the moment as possible, and to engage with it in the best way that we can see to be possible.  The now is the infinite.  Don't get hung up on legacy, that's just a tired vanity trip.

All, of course, with a moral compass.

Edited February 3 by rogxwhit

[Rupert Greenwell]

I am going through my digital files at the moment selecting first for my own enjoyment photos that I will print and put in albums. Second I will make photo books , again for my own enjoyment  and probably easier to look through than a large album.  Handy too if  in case I have a stay in hospital ! .

Thirdly I will put together a book or two as a reference of my farm, the buildings, woods, fields etc so that future generations can look back at the changes, good or bad. I still have my grand parents and my mother's photo albums and have often enjoyed looking back as how things were before changes were made in the last 115 years.

I have recently renovated and restored  the farm house and used photos from the early 1960's when the house was still in it's original state before the 'improvements' of the 1970's.  My grand father's photos of the 1920's show a country side very lacking in trees compared to today. The trees were extensively felled for the first world war.

I regret very much of not recording my farming career and the rural area in which I have lived all my life in the way that the photographer James Ravilious did. So much has changed and not for the better.

 

 

[pgk]

If someone is interested in looking at my photos after I'm dead I am sure that they will be able to figure out how to access the files, RAW or JPEG. That said it dpoesn't bother me either way. They will only have any usefuness if someone is interested enough to look through them and in all honesty I would be very surprised if anyone will bother to. The sheer quantity of digital image files available to people in the future will be a sure way of ensuring that they cannot cope with the vastness of the task of identifying anything worth retaining.

[prioritet]

1 hour ago, pgk said:

 Огромное количество файлов цифровых изображений, доступных людям в будущем, станет верным способом убедиться, что они не справятся с масштабностью задачи идентификации чего-либо, что стоит сохранить.

finally, artificial intelligence will find a worthy use.

[pippy]

The question of what will be of interest to anyone in the future - and what will not - is quite complex.

Family snapshots will almost certainly hold more importance than any 'Arty' photograph. As such the names and family connections (if any) should be recorded. One simple way would be to annotate such info on the rear of a print.

A year or two ago my wife came into possession of a large quantity of Family Photographs; some dating to the very late 19th century. Whilst many of the more recent characters were easy to identify there were many she didn't recognise and about whom knew nothing. Fortunately we are in close contact with a great uncle and aunt who are 87 & 90 years old and they were able to 'fill in the blanks'. Had either of these two been no longer around then there would have been no way in the world that the identity of certain personages could have been discovered.

Keeping photo's is all well and good but it is essential to keep relevant information otherwise the excercise will be pointless.

As far as my own legacy personal non-family stuff goes? I have printed one book (using Blurb and the quality, IMO, is fine). I kept the 'prototype' and further copies of the volume - with numerous additions - were given to half a dozen close friends. I have numerous boxes of prints of preffered snaps and, for many of these, have noted their file numbers on the reverse. I keep both DNG and TIFF / JPEG files backed-up on hard drives but greatly doubt that there will be anyone very interested in looking through my pics after I'm gone; for one thing there must be over 100,000 of the things!

I really should get to work on assembling a collection of newer work; the volume mentioned above was put together a decade ago and the content leaves much to be desired...😸...

Hopefully our daughter will be more interested in creating her own art.

Philip.

[jaapv]

Finding old photographs can be quite unsettling. Years ago at the Holocaust museum in Berlin I found a poignant gallery of Jewish families in different countries. I recognized one person in a family group having dinner: a cousin of my Grandmother whom I only knew from one passport photograph. I must admit it threw me. 
So yes the most important legacy will be the informal one and mostly taken by smartphone. 

[pippy]

1 hour ago, jaapv said:

...the most important legacy will be the informal one and mostly taken by smartphone...

What proportion of the populace do you reckon, Jaap, download and print smartphone photographs?

In the future will our children and their descendants be able to access any currently-existing 'Cloud' to discover such personal and privately uploaded images as might be being taken through using these devices today?

Philip.

[pippy]

3 hours ago, Rupert Greenwell said:

...I regret very much of not recording my farming career and the rural area in which I have lived all my life in the way that the photographer James Ravilious did. So much has changed and not for the better...

As a means of recording Historical Changes it is difficult to imagine a more well-suited medium than photography - whether through still or moving images.

The riverside stretch of the north bank of the Thames from St. Katherine's Dock to the 'new' financial district of Canary Wharf on the Isle of Dogs has seen much change over the last three decades. There are countless modern steel-and-glass apartment buildings lining the once wharf-filled lands but, equally, there are many areas where changes have been quite subtle.

Here are two photographs captured from roughly the same spot but taken some 120 years apart. The top photograph was sent to me by a friend as a response for some pictures which I had taken of St. John's Wharf just before Christmas and, at the time, had sent to him. After receiving the 'old' pic I returned in an attempt to replicate the view;

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Clearly the large building to the left - 'St. John's (F & G) Wharf' - has been completely renovated and there are notable differences; especially the roofline which has been re-profiled to allow for one extra floor in the attic and a roof-top veranda / patio area. The old 'St. John's (H) Wharf' is now the Captain Kidd watering hole. Further along, behind the tugboat, what had been 'St. John's I, J and K' Wharves is now named 'Phoenix Wharf' and it is this bit which was the main reason I returned to take the new snap.

This building - which is Grade-II Listed - is just about to be re-developed by the Architectural firm CZWG. My friend who had sent the photo had worked for this practice back in the 1980's so I thought he might be interested to keep an eye out for how the project progresses.

I would also very much like to re-visit the spot from where the pic shown below was grabbed. The photo shows a few of the skyscrapers of the then-developing Financial District (including the HSBC building which was completed in 2002) but this skyline will be unrecognisable when compared with what it looks like today;

I can't remember exctly where I was when I took this pic but I'm sure it can't be too difficult to work it out.

I know that the Port of London Authority has a great interest in photographs which record the changing face of the riverfront - they have extensive archives to that effect - so I might put together a collection of my own photographs taken through the years which they might be interested to receive to add to their collection.

Philip.

Edited February 3 by pippy

[Photoworks]

Back in 1996 with the M6 28mm , and 2023 with M11 and Summilux 28mm

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[marchyman]

14 hours ago, Deeetona said:

Do you all really think your "heirs" are going to care that much about your photos? What makes you think so?

Some will.   I spent a bunch of time "scanning" negatives, slides, and prints after parents and grandparents died. I put the results on a photo sharing site for family member access.  My work was appreciated by some, ignored by others.

Anyway, I like the "put it in the cloud" solution today.  I may change my opinion tomorrow.

[FrozenInTime]

Forums like this have a role to play where jpeg images are saved locally on the server.

Case in point is Steve Walton @Ouroboros who posted many great images showing us the beauty of the Western isles. Sadly he met with an untimely mountain biking accident in Africa. His personal website is gone. Now in addition to here on LUF, his Instagram stands in testament https://www.instagram.com/hebrideanphotographer/

Short of being talented enough to sell books, I think the key to preserving a legacy is to give as many images as you can to your friends, family, and to the world.

[RQ44]

19 hours ago, andybarton said:

With due respect, unless you are Garry Winogrand, or a photographer of his stature, I am guessing that very few people will be interested in your digital files when you’re gone. It’s a simple fact of life. I can guarantee that neither of my children will have any desire to trawl through my hard drives. 

If you want to leave some of your photographs behind, print them and publish them in a real book. 

If anyone is still alive in 100 years time, they will look back on the last 25 years and ask “Where are all the photographs?”

I agree with you. My work cannot compare to the work of Garry. I used Garry as an example because his popularity has facilitated the continuation of his work to be enjoyed by many. When our time is up, do our hard drives sit a drawer gathering dust and potentially never to be accessed again. All the work and effort put into our art and it all culminates to a dusty lifeless hard drive. It is sad to think this is how it could be. Years of capturing the world and people around us and all locked away in a plastic box. I have a family photo drive that my family has access to but all my other work, my personal work is on drives put away. There are far too many photos to print. 

Do we just purge them all when one gets close to the.............end of time, to be erased as we will become?

Edited February 4 by RQ44

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[prioritet]

Everyone knows the story Vivian Maier?