How are you preparing your photo collection for the next generation? (Page 4): I'm with you brother. Don't need anything archival when you are the end of the line.

SteveFranz Loc: Durham, NC

Curmudgeon wrote:

I don't, I have no one who will care when I'm gone

I'm with you brother. Don't need anything archival when you are the end of the line.

muggins88 Loc: Inverness, Florida

I have marked my external hard drives as family – travel – miscellaneous.

RodeoMan Loc: St Joseph, Missouri

gvarner wrote:

Family photo albums used to be just that, family photos to record us forever in posterity. Now with social media we can call up photos of friends and family, trips made and places visited, celebrations, ad nauseam. No one needs to bother digging into our treasure troves of thousands of our photos that may be on our computers.

I work on my family's genealogy and am wondering if a hundred years from now the images "that may be on our computers" will be available for the genealogist or historian of the future. Personally I'd put my money on the shoebox or photo album as opposed to the SD card, cloud or hard drive. I have seen all sorts of old photographs at thrift stores, antique stores or at on line auctions, but I have never seen an SD card or DVD in an envelope labelled "family pictures".

Real Nikon Lover Loc: Simi Valley, CA

Curmudgeon wrote:

I don't, I have no one who will care when I'm gone

Kind of sad Curmudgeon! :( I will be your Huckleberry. Actually I find you to be an interesting and nice chap. The kind of character I would hang out with if I were in AZ. I have half a dozen friends now living in AZ. Only the stout live there. Cheers to longevity and more shutterclicks.

Real Nikon Lover Loc: Simi Valley, CA

genocolo wrote:

Most of us have photos, videos, albums, etc which are meaningful to us and may provide a kind of visual family history. We probably hope that at least some of our siblings, children, grandchildren and other family would like to be able to view and keep some of these, after we are gone or so disabled as not to be able to transfer or maintain them. Physical scrapbooks used to be a common way to accomplish the same thing.

So, what are you doing?

Just starting to work on that. I have photos going back to late 1800's of family. Historical photos from Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and California. Scanning, identifying people and dates. Brings up the importance of tagging electronically who, where and when a digital photo was taken. I have added text overlay digitally in some of my keeper pictures so when the photos are printed that information is in the lower left or right margin along with my copyright graphic.

I just bought electronic drives and have a teraflop worth of space to store data across an array of drives in an "unraid" digital Fort Knox.

muggins88 Loc: Inverness, Florida

RodeoMan Loc: St Joseph, Missouri

Here we all are involved in an activity or hobby that many of us have paid tens of thousands of dollars for the equipment and related charges to produce an ephemeral result that we are just going to shit-can. Why even bother in the first place? Why don't we all use particle board furniture and eat off paper plates? If what we are creating lacks any lasting merit, why are we even bothering with it? Why spend money on photo safaris when there are already plenty of images on line? Why do we spend days and countless posts arguing with some old guy in Wisconsin about some matter that we say doesn't matter? I am sure that all (or most) of us have images that we wish we had deleted or hadn't printed. This is a problem of lack of resolve, not having the backbone to make the tough decisions or plain laziness of not getting around to culling our images. But surely some of our work is worthy of being caried forward into the future. If the caretakers of the future do not appreciate what they have received then that is on them, we have done our part. We also need to consider that everything that is created does not show its immediate worth or value when it is created. People knew that an Ansel Adams, or any of a number of other photographers, were producing valuable work during their working lives. However there are others whose worth was only discovered after their passing such as Vivian Meier, or Michael Disfarmer. I think of the many contributors on this forum who have spent a lifetime practicing their craft and who have shared the results of this work and also their innate vision with us and have to believe that their efforts should at least have the chance of existing into the future. If what we are doing is such little importance and consequence even to our own families, then isn't this whole forum so much hot air about something insignificant that ultimately doesn't even matter?

appreciate the journey Loc: wandering

PS: you might be interested in my writeup [url=https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/user-page?upnum=2991]Adding Documentation to Family Photos

Thank you. I clicked on this topic because i was curious what everyone here thought about it. Personally, while i enjoy photography, and occasionally snap a keeper, i cannot see anyone really being interested in anything i have shot.
As 'Harry0' pointed out earlier, anything stored digitally is liable to corruption. Being able to store digitally kinda spoils us.....now we can store thousands of pictures on card after card.
More stuff to carry around and clutter our lives.

DavidThompson mentioned that his 3 kids were minimalists. I admit that i kind of fancy this idea, but getting there is a battle. I wonder often if 'collecting' and 'clutter' are curses.

RodeoMan Loc: St Joseph, Missouri

Curmudgeon wrote:

I don't, I have no one who will care when I'm gone

You old turd, I'll care when you are gone.

coolhanduke Loc: Redondo Beach, CA

I went through my thousands of photos and sorted the family ones into piles to distribute among my 4 sisters and 1 brother.
Many of them were of their kids and our family gatherings. The ones I wanted I scanned with an Epson 750 Pro and a Kodak bulk scanner.
Since we don’t have any kids, I took all of my albums apart, scanned a few of the “good” shots and took all of them to hazardous waste roundup.
The videos I wanted to keep I transferred to DVD and also took all of them to haz waste roundup.
We have gone from the days of pulling out the slide projector, the photo album, Kodak CD system to just flicking through our phone to show selective pictures. No need for photo albums.

DJBAD

Being a genealogist, I don't have much interest for the beautiful mountain vestas, but photos of people, families and homes are much sought after. There are several people in my family tree that didn't have anyone to pass their photos down to but I can assure you, they are, or will be treasures to someone someday.

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

RodeoMan wrote:

I work on my family's genealogy and am wondering if a hundred years from now the images "that may be on our computers" will be available for the genealogist or historian of the future. Personally I'd put my money on the shoebox or photo album as opposed to the SD card, cloud or hard drive. I have seen all sorts of old photographs at thrift stores, antique stores or at on line auctions, but I have never seen an SD card or DVD in an envelope labelled "family pictures".

The Mormon Church might be interested in the images if they are properly identified for their genealogy archives.

JonTB Loc: Lake Frederick, VA

Since starting to use a digital camera in 2001, I maintain and back up an annual family activity file i.e., "2022 Family" Folders within include: Me & My Wife; one for each of our two children; a folder for each side of my and my wife's family; and a Friends folder. I keep a separate "Old Photos historical/ancestry" file and a "My Best Shots" file/gallery. The other 100,000 photos just sit on external backup disks. My mother (1919-1998) was a prolific family/people photographer with her Kodak point & shoots. This was really good. However, I sure wish she would have taken photos of the homes they were born in and lived in, ancestor's homes, family farms, churches, and old buildings that were important during their lives as well as when we were young kids. Prior to 2001, I have numerous labeled slides, negatives, and pictures in albums and boxes.

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

DJBAD wrote:

Being a genealogist, I don't have much interest for the beautiful mountain vestas, but photos of people, families and homes are much sought after. There are several people in my family tree that didn't have anyone to pass their photos down to but I can assure you, they are, or will be treasures to someone someday.

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

JonTB wrote:

Since starting to use a digital camera in 2001, I ... (show quote)

Are any of those homes or buildings still standing?
If so capture before they are destroyed.