Juor Loc: Murrieta Ca.

And so goes the song by Dennis Zager and Rick Evans back in 1969, that song still makes me think of what will the future will be,back then i thought that by the year 2016 we all would be having vacations on the moon, but did not happen, which brings me to my worries, what will happen to my very precious photographs i have in my Dropbox acct. and on my external hard drives in the year 2525, will they still be around, well lets not go so far, lets say the year 2020, just only 4 years from now, will the technology change so much that i won't have a way of getting to my photos, so I've been thinking of a way to preserve my photos so my great great grand kids can say "Wow great great grand pops took good photos", the only way for that to happen is to print them and then to laminate them, making them almost indestructible.
What do you think ?

Keldon Loc: Yukon, B.C.

I'm not trying to be rude but do you really believe that anyone other than the people actually in them will care about your photos? Unless you have shots of some monumental disaster or other world shaking event, no one will even bother looking at them. After all, how often do you ever look back on your photos or open an album to peruse whats inside, either on the computer or in a physical album? I know I very seldom look at mine after I've initially worked them and my family never does.

brucewells Loc: Central Kentucky

I think we all fantasize to some degree about immortalizing our efforts, but there's a lot of truth in what Keldon says. When I think I have a really good image, I print it at 5X7 and hang it on a big board we have in the kitchen. It's gotten to the point when family/friends come to the house, the first thing they do is go to the board to see if they're on it. They also know that if they are, and they like the photo, they are free to take it. And, they know that if they want a larger print (or a digital version), all they have to do is ask. In my sober thinking, I believe this is as close as I can get to immortalizing my images.

Mac Loc: Pittsburgh, Philadelphia now Hernando Co. Fl.

The way digital storage has changed over the last few years that is a good question. Remember when floppy discs were the way to go? Now no computers have slots for them. There is no reason to think the same thing won't happen to DVDs, external hard drives, external solid state drives, clouds, etc. Maybe the best way is to print them out and keep then in an old shoe box.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

You're right - print the best, preferably in black and white and hang the ones you love. In our long back hall, we have well over a hundred B&Ws (no color) of family, friends, and the occasional event, some dating back to daguerreotypes, with lighting arranged gallery style. Not only do we look at them, but most visitors to our house do as well. They're interested, as are we, our children and grandchildren, in times past and relatives long dead. If you teach your children in that way, I doubt they'll be forgotten or destroyed when you're gone.

LiamRowan Loc: Michigan

About 30 years ago my parents got into genealogy and unearthed many photos of ancestors. My two brothers and I found these fascinating to peruse--and still look at them from time to time. My thinking is that it is the volume of photos we are able to pass on thanks to digital files will be an issue. I have 10 gigs of my granddaughter--I can't imagine anyone, even her, wanting to slog through that volume. I keep a folder of "best images" that will mercifully make it easier on anyone interested somewhere down the line.

rjaywallace Loc: Wisconsin

Juor, your great great great (and really nice) grandchildren will ALL say, "What's a camera?"

JohnSwanda Loc: San Francisco

It doesn't occur to you that your descendants my be interested in seeing photos of their forbearers? Years ago I asked my parents if they had any old family photographs. They both dug up old boxes and did have photos going back several generations. They were still able to identify the people in the photos and we carefully labeled the backs of the photos with the names and relationships in them. I agree that it is valuable to print the best photos of your family, and be sure to identify the people for future generations. Even if you keep them in digital format, you can add information on the people into the EXIF. It is true that maintaining digital photos for the future requires some thought and work, and may require updating them in different mediums or maybe even formats, but it can be worth it.

boberic Loc: Quiet Corner, Connecticut. Ex long Islander

We just moved. I discovered hundredes of slides that date back to the 60's I will have them digitized so I can actually see them. Maybe I will have some that are worth printing. But as far as future generations having any desire to see them--I doubt it.

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

There is a solution to having future generations see your photos. Online genealogy sites such as Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.com and others allow you to append pictures to individuals in your tree. It is highly likely that these will be maintained far into the future, long after we are all gone, and future generations will be able to see them. I know in my case, I have uploaded images of my ancestors who are long gone from mortal life. Of course, the old pictures can also really show off the state of technology at the time too. (I think of some images from the 1800's that I have uploaded) The alternative is scads of your photos living on a hard drive that no one even remembers (or knows) that they are there and the hard drive is eventually disposed of by some descendant who is not so interested in your photos and who thinks that a 4 or 6 TByte drive is so archaic that it isn't worth consideration what is on it.

G Brown Loc: Sunny Bognor Regis West Sussex UK

Old film prints seem to go in and out of fashion. But they are still available so 'laminating' pictures may be a step too far. What people hate is shuffling through loads of snaps to get to 'the interesting ones'. Maybe a simple filing system would ensure that they have a future 'value'. As technology improves, the size of the 'original print' becomes irrelevant: so even printing 30 to a page is a practical solution to having huge numbers but I would suggest selecting only your best efforts would be a much better way to go.
In the UK we have local 'Records offices' that keep a track of all sorts of information regarding a locality. We also have a 'photography museum' that is building up a photographic archive. If you have similar, then contact them and ask what they would like to and how they would like it indexed. Their indexing obviously works so might give you a hang on how to index your own shots in any case.
Having studied for a degree as a mature student, I appreciate that history, especially local history, is of huge interest and a resource used by many. Pictures can be great resource as even when the people are forgotten 'the background' lives forever from a variety of sources. Some of the only 'true facts' of history.
Hope this is encouraging

Orson Burleigh Loc: Annapolis, Maryland, USA

Once upon a time there was Kodachrome...
Kodakchrome images were fine-grained and resolution was good (though not really comparable to the shear quantity of detail available with recent digital sensors). Best of all, Kodachrome images were and are resistant to degradation if reasonably well stored, protected from high heat, humidity and dust. My father has beautiful Kodachrome slides which are nearly 70 years old; some of my own Kodachrome slides seem to be little changed after as much as 45 years. Sending the Kodakchrome film from sunny Southeast Asia to Australia or to the U.S. for processing was a bit of a pain, and Extachrome, GAF and Agfa films were faster, more readily available and more easily processed locally. I now wish that I had chosen Kodachrome more often. Many of the Extachrome, GAF and Agfachrome slides of similar vintage have not fared so well, and the few prints that I still have from that era have turned to mud.

This is more of a digression (along memory lane) than a solution - I am an old man who just about manages to keep breathing while swimming in a turbulent digital sea. Having recently returned to photography, my recent practice is to maintain multiple digital copies in different places. I am in some hope that my digitally-ept grandchildren will become interested in photography and will be willing to see to the preservation of worthwhile images through the inevitable changes of means and modes.

Acountry330 Loc: Dothan,Ala USA

By 2525 I do not think to many people will be interested in photos from people that were not famous.

Bugfan Loc: Toronto, Canada

If you have someone in the family who is interested in family history, that is the person who should receive all the images you took with family and friends. That person would see them as having value.

Most of my own photography is wildlife and nature. There is probably little interest in the longer term for these images except for those that are capturing species that have gone extinct or are about to. These latter images might be useful so you can offer them to a naturalist or a museum.

I have a lot of travel pictures too. Those could be donated to the place they represented. Often as things change and new buildings grow but there is no record of what it used to be like. Your pictures could be that record.

As to everything else, it's doubtful that anyone will be interested unless you do artistic stuff that people would like to buy.

And as to protecting them, I suggest keep a DVD drive so that when you buy a computer eventually that doesn't have one, you still have one you can use. In fact I still have a turntable too so I can play my vinyl. In our electronic world reading the data will not be a big issue. There will be enough conversion utilities that will allow you to convert your images into the latest format without losing quality. The only problem is having the technology to read it. But then ... you can actually still buy inexpensive machines that are record players that will either connect to a computer or burn a CD, I've seen one that will also play cassettes and record them on a CD or DVD. So I am not concerned about the data I've created, there will always be some way to see it again. And of course the film ones you don't need a utility or a technology to see.

Peterff Loc: O'er The Hills and Far Away, in Themyscira.

Whether people will be interested or not is open to question. Ken Burns might be a good person to ask.

As for formats, media will come and go, but digital formats can usually be translated from one form to another, and usually endure better than any physical medium, you just have to manage the transitions and make sure the translation is done while the software to do that is available.

Even analog to digital is relatively straight forward although it may take some time and effort. Physical media has a finite life, regardless of the type of media. Digital representations can be endlessly transformed without loss in many situations. It just requires paying attention.

Dust to dust, ashes to ashes, but you can't stop the signal! With respect to Serenity and "Mr. Universe".