Our Photo Inventory
Aug 9, 2021 08:38:54 #
Recently helped clear home of cousins that had passed. No kids. There were 15 boxes w/8-10 photo albums in each box. Several photos were saved. The balance: thrown out. Same with my brother-in-law’s 12 boxes of slides. Pulled 20 slides to scan. Discarding the rest. What remains of value when we’re gone? The family’s not interested in old photos of standing beside old friends, long forgotten, at the edge of the Grand Canyon…black bears eating fish in a stream.
Our photos bring us joy, but our 10K of photos need to be culled, regularly, so when we are gone there will be a few of the great-grand ancestors, a few of our favorites, but then…what will have value for the next generation? Not much.
Holding onto things, it’s a weighty responsibility, and what is the payoff?
~ Eileen
Our photos bring us joy, but our 10K of photos need to be culled, regularly, so when we are gone there will be a few of the great-grand ancestors, a few of our favorites, but then…what will have value for the next generation? Not much.
Holding onto things, it’s a weighty responsibility, and what is the payoff?
~ Eileen
Aug 9, 2021 08:48:10 #
Unless you sell your stuff?
No pay off. Photography is a self-serving hobby in many ways.
No pay off. Photography is a self-serving hobby in many ways.
Aug 9, 2021 08:50:00 #
Aug 9, 2021 09:01:35 #
Could have thrown away something that someone else may have liked, for some reason.
Aug 9, 2021 09:07:21 #
Gspeed wrote:
Recently helped clear home of cousins that had pas... (show quote)
Good topic/comment, Eileen. Timely for me as I am downsizing and moving to much smaller quarters. I have lots of my own photos plus lots from my parents.
I agree with the need to cull. But I don't fully agree with your negative view of what might be of value to the next generation. I found a belated interest in my parents' photos, especially the older ones. Looking at them now, I wish I had paid more attention when I still had a chance to ask questions.
My answer is scanning. Once I have an electronic file I don't feel so bad about discarding the originals....
Aug 9, 2021 09:15:37 #
It’s a letting go decision that many of us will eventually face. If not us, someone cleaning up after us. When my widowed mother passed a little over a year ago, she had already reduced the family albums to three and had distributed other pictures to me and my siblings years before. For her (and my brothers and sisters), there was no digital dilemma. When I’m gone, I’ve always assumed that my wife will eventually grab those that interest her and delete the rest eventually. Her more difficult problem will be those family pictures I inherited that my siblings may not care about. Tossing something physical is harder for some than dragging folder to trash.
Aug 9, 2021 09:27:09 #
Longshadow wrote:
Could have thrown away something that someone else may have liked, for some reason.
There were no adult children and their grown siblings were not interested (in both cases).
Aug 9, 2021 09:28:22 #
Aug 9, 2021 10:06:10 #
I wish I had kept all my old printed 35mm photos, these are long gone since digital came around it's been far easier to save images. But I still miss the manual focus days. So unless you have the negative that go with these images, there not really anything you can do with them as any reprinting will distort the images.
Aug 9, 2021 10:45:46 #
Gspeed wrote:
Recently helped clear home of cousins that had pas... (show quote)
just my thoughts on this. the longest lasting and records of life through the ages are drawing on cave walls. then there are drawings and paintings through the ages. camera obscura started our journey into photography. the printed photo's are a cornucopia of the history and life styles of family's, recreation, and environment. not many of the tools used to capture those images survive, only the hard final product of images. for most of us those images are personal but they feed into a tremendously large history of us. the capture tools and storage methods go away and change (how many vhs tapes sit idle and disintegrating with not much left to present the images they captured. cd's are pretty much gone, electromagnetic media is a moving an volatile target. It's amazing how those printed images on little pieces of glass, and paper have survived. prints... an interesting concept to consider. just sayin.
Aug 9, 2021 11:21:27 #
Whatever we print might remain...and make a great garage sale find!!
Aug 9, 2021 11:22:56 #
Longshadow wrote:
No hay problema !Could have thrown away something that someone else may have liked, for some reason.
Aug 10, 2021 05:17:21 #
Sidwalkastronomy wrote:
I photograph for me and if others enjoy them it's a plus
Aug 10, 2021 08:07:56 #
That is exactly why I scanned two bins of my 35mm slides and a number of family photo albums. All digital making it so much easer for my sons to trash "unneeded" property after my Viking Funeral.
Aug 10, 2021 08:57:47 #
That's why I asked UHH for the name of a good "photo album" program so I could easily create a PowerPoint type presentation with selected, captioned slides. My hope is that each slide will have enough information so future generations can see the connection of the subject to their own lives making the photo meaningful. Needles to say, these photos will not be of sunsets, wildlife, architectural features, crashing waves and landscapes.
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