Trashing the Digital Age
Maybe I was just born too soon. I remember a closet in my mother's apartment where we kept a metal Erector Set box (you know, the A.C. Gilbert construction kits that were like Legos --but with aluminum parts and cuts and scrapes at no extra cost?) filled with old photos. They went back to the early 1930's and came forward to my youth. Our family must have used up more black and white film in that Kodak box camera than the whole rest of the world. Well, not really, but it seemed like it.
That metal box survived for 40 years without incident, despite a move and no plasticene envelopes. The pictures were just piled into it, like memories waiting to be sorted through.
So what's my problem? I guess it's nostalgia versus practical experience. I would have loved having those photos on my computer to finally celebrate the second coming of the digital age. The convenience of double-clicking an image and falling into a slide-show display versus getting a chair so I could reach the top shelf of the closet, slowly pulling down the metal box, and then re-doing everything to put it back again is immense.
Then I think back over the last five years and remember how many times I've changed computers or how many drives have self-destructed (four in the last two years, my systems are running 24/7), or how many systems themselves have gotten a case of the galloping hiccups, and I have to wonder how anyone could expect the longevity of their prized photos on a computer to compete with that metal Erector Set box.
I guess that's why there are online photo services that will store your pictures and I'm sure they're more secure than a PC in a room. Mostly. I don't see any that have been around 40 years yet. Then again, I'm not really sure I want pictures of my mother and father as young people or me as a child, sitting in the sand at Orchard Beach, slapping the bottom of a pale with a metal shovel, stored in someone else's house. After all, they're not commodity items. They're my memories.
That metal box survived for 40 years without incident, despite a move and no plasticene envelopes. The pictures were just piled into it, like memories waiting to be sorted through.
So what's my problem? I guess it's nostalgia versus practical experience. I would have loved having those photos on my computer to finally celebrate the second coming of the digital age. The convenience of double-clicking an image and falling into a slide-show display versus getting a chair so I could reach the top shelf of the closet, slowly pulling down the metal box, and then re-doing everything to put it back again is immense.
Then I think back over the last five years and remember how many times I've changed computers or how many drives have self-destructed (four in the last two years, my systems are running 24/7), or how many systems themselves have gotten a case of the galloping hiccups, and I have to wonder how anyone could expect the longevity of their prized photos on a computer to compete with that metal Erector Set box.
I guess that's why there are online photo services that will store your pictures and I'm sure they're more secure than a PC in a room. Mostly. I don't see any that have been around 40 years yet. Then again, I'm not really sure I want pictures of my mother and father as young people or me as a child, sitting in the sand at Orchard Beach, slapping the bottom of a pale with a metal shovel, stored in someone else's house. After all, they're not commodity items. They're my memories.
posted by Bill at 11:31 PM
6 Comments:
That's why I put them on CD's. I make multiple copies and give them to my relatives. I also back them up on tape from my server. As far as looking at them goes, I put them in the My Pictures folder on my wifes computer and set the screen saver for photo slide show. We see the digital versions alot more then the printed versions.
True, I was just addressing the possible loss of the digital pictures due to hardware failure/replacement. As a matter of fact, My Inlaws just had copies made from an old black and white of my wife and her siblings. They had them enlarged and framed so we could hang them in our living rooms.
I have a bag full of Canon +lenses that I haven't used in at least 8 years. My current CoolPix 5400 is more than enough for me, as were the somewhat less embellished digicams were before it. And you're right, sitting with your nose against the display isn't quite the same.
Rapcomp - DVD formats are undergoing change. Make sure you re-copy all those photos to whatever format emerges over the course of the next two years.
Oldster, no harm, I enjoy the back and forth in the comments. Bill, I have a Canon F1 that is over 20 years old, I used it to take pictures last year when my son graduated from high school while my wife took shots with the digital.
I still think the optics are better on the SLR's, and when I can afford it, I'll get a digital SLR. I do keep an eye on the changing standards. Even though I poke fun at you for having a floppy in your new boxes, I keep a 5.25 inch and 3.5 inch around, just in case. Heck, I still have my 8086 powered Tandy 1000sx around because I have a data base on it that I never converted to something newer!
And I just threw away my Tecmar external 10MB cartridge drive unit...
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