Becoming documentarians: Just my observation here. We are entering an age of photography documentarians, folks taking snapshots of anything and everything that piques their interest.

gvarner Loc: Central Oregon Coast

Just my observation here. We are entering an age of photography documentarians, folks taking snapshots of anything and everything that piques their interest. It’s so easy to do now. And the younger generation seems to becoming fully engaged. Much of what I see on this forum is a testament to that reality. I’m not trying to be negatively critical, just making an observation. Others will have different opinions.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

gvarner wrote:

Just my observation here. We are entering an age of photography documentarians, folks taking snapshots of anything and everything that piques their interest. It’s so easy to do now. And the younger generation seems to becoming fully engaged. Much of what I see on this forum is a testament to that reality. I’m not trying to be negatively critical, just making an observation. Others will have different opinions.

Yes, I agree. These million of photos could be of interest in the future.

For the past few years, I've been taking pictures around my town. Structures come and go, and it's nice have a pictorial history.

badapple Loc: Twin Lake, Michigan

Yes, some structures are missing of which I had pictures.

gvarner Loc: Central Oregon Coast

jerryc41 wrote:

Yes, I agree. These million of photos could be of interest in the future.

For the past few years, I've been taking pictures around my town. Structures come and go, and it's nice have a pictorial history.

We all have a digital trunk full of potential archival photos that some future generation may find instructive.

bobbyjohn Loc: Dallas, TX

Methinks part of the problem is COST. Back in the FILM era, first you had to buy the film, then each click on the camera might cost you dearly 25¢ - 50¢ in developing, whether or not you had several duds in the roll of film. With digital, the only thing you pay for is a one-time SD card and a nice Post-processing program (hopefully one-time). Each click on the camera is virtually free after that. You can discard duds to your heart's content.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

bobbyjohn wrote:

Methinks part of the problem is COST. Back in the FILM era, first you had to buy the film, then each click on the camera might cost you dearly 25¢ - 50¢ in developing, whether or not you had several duds in the roll of film. With digital, the only thing you pay for is a one-time SD card and a nice Post-processing program (hopefully one-time). Each click on the camera is virtually free after that. You can discard duds to your heart's content.

And that's why digital is so good! When this trend was starting, I kept asking, "So what will they do with all those digital pictures?" I was used to putting them into photo albums, and I couldn't imagine printing all my digital shots.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

jerryc41 wrote:

And that's why digital is so good! When this trend was starting, I kept asking, "So what will they do with all those digital pictures?" I was used to putting them into photo albums, and I couldn't imagine printing all my digital shots.

So glad I'm <very> selective in what I shoot.....

pendennis

With the onslaught of digital images, we still have to wonder, "Who will care when I'm gone?". In addition to the thousands of digital images, I've scanned more than 15k of negatives and transparencies. They're fascinating, but will they be as much to future generations past my children?

We also have to wonder why more of those B&W and transparency images haven't survived the trunks and boxes in the attic.

gvarner Loc: Central Oregon Coast

Longshadow wrote:

So glad I'm <very> selective in what I shoot.....

That’s always in the back of my mind, being selective in what I shoot, but I don’t practice it enough. I have more keepers among the slides that I’ve scanned than I have among my several thousand digital images. A lot of my digital photos were taken "just because I could".

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

gvarner wrote:

That’s always in the back of my mind, being selective in what I shoot, but I don’t practice it enough. I have more keepers among the slides that I’ve scanned than I have among my several thousand digital images. A lot of my digital photos were taken "just because I could".

For all the years I shot with film, couldn't afford dozens of rolls for an outing/trip,
so I was very selective when/what I shot. I simply carried that over to digital.
Just because I CAN take 100 shots of one thing doesn't mean I should or have to.

BebuLamar

I don't think it's negative nor positive. Whatever others take pictures of is irrerelevant to me.

PHRubin Loc: Nashville TN USA

Much of my photo activity is documenting country music events. I enjoy when people refer back to these photos years later. I have photos of celebrities who are no longer with us.

Bill_de Loc: US

All the digital images will someday disappear unless the files are updated to whatever becomes the 'medium of th day'. How many images are archived on 3 1/2 inch floppies, or Jazz drives, or whatever. Sure there will be some that survive, but most will fade from existence. Many won't be missed by anyone.

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gvarner Loc: Central Oregon Coast

PHRubin wrote:

Much of my photo activity is documenting country music events. I enjoy when people refer back to these photos years later. I have photos of celebrities who are no longer with us.

It’s good that you have a story to tell. It’s what documentary photography is all about.

photosbytw Loc: Blue Ridge Mountains

This response is a little off topic but I am in the middle of a personal project of digitizing a collection of family photos, some 3500 plus, that also requires some restoration. Most of the information concerning imagery has been lost, so, I tend to treat some of my digital documentary imagery with more focus on the information necessary needed to clearly explain the intent of the image.

Note- I started my little personal project six years ago and I don't even have a quarter of them digitized.