The end of the family album: At 77, I suspect that the concept of the family album will disappear with my generation. The digital world is loaded with photos that are just a click...

gvarner Loc: Central Oregon Coast

At 77, I suspect that the concept of the family album will disappear with my generation. The digital world is loaded with photos that are just a click away, so easy to do that children can do it, and easy to share. In the days of yore there was only one, maybe two family members who snapped away at birthdays and other events, making prints and storing them away for posterity. Now the ether is flooded with such images, take your pick.

NJFrank Loc: New Jersey

My daughter in law has albums made from their trips that they take. Whether domestically or overseas. I think she uses Shutterfly to produce their albums. They always come out looking good and a nice way to preserve their trips. So I guess all is not lost.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Yea, the "albums" are now on a computer or phone.

If they didn't, they'd probably have dozens of book albums.
It's so easy now to take MANY, many pictures of things.
Who wants dozens of hard albums. They're on my computer.
(Hopefully backed up!)

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

gvarner wrote:

At 77, I suspect that the concept of the family album will disappear with my generation. The digital world is loaded with photos that are just a click away, so easy to do that children can do it, and easy to share. In the days of yore there was only one, maybe two family members who snapped away at birthdays and other events, making prints and storing them away for posterity. Now the ether is flooded with such images, take your pick.

I have come to the conclusion that when I die few if any will look at my pictures. Look at how pictures are stored these days. Remember when we stored them on Floppy Discs, then CDs? Who knows what will come along in the future?

Wingpilot Loc: Wasilla. Ak

I have multiple boxes with color prints stored in them. They’ve been stored for years. Seems that a roll of film was processed, returned, the photos looked at and then put away. Perhaps one or two would be put in an album. But we have several photo albums with the important photos kept there, and I no longer feel the need to keep all these other pictures, most of which are multiples of the same thing on a roll. The negatives have all gotten scattered over several moves, so I don’t know to which batch of photos they belong. Then there are the three external storage devices filled with digital images. We don’t look at them, either, but at least they don’t take up any room to store. I suspect that all these other prints will find their way to the backyard fireplace this spring. We’ll keep the existing albums and some of the slides, and the rest can be disposed of. Besides, my projector died anyway, and who wants to watch a slide show anyway? 😁 So no more family albums unless I want to pick up a digital photo frame and load some images on that.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

Old prints are still probably the best way to store images in terms of fading of the image with age*. However, people have been brainwashed to avoid paper copies of most everything these days on the theory that it uses up trees. As a result, most younger people do not store paper things any more.

I would like to point out that trees are a renewable resource and paper is a carbon sink. Paper sequesters carbon, so it is good environmentally. We should encourage carbon sequestration as a way to combat climate change. Spread the word and maybe we can get the young generations to store paper copies of things again.

Many paper alternatives, such as plastics, are made from nonrenewable petrochemicals so paper is better.

* Proper storage is needed to avoid fading from light exposure.

TanglewodFarmer Loc: NW.Ar.

Lighthouse51

I disagree. I make albums using an online service. One for each year. One for special occasions. They come out looking great, and you can organize your prints to tell a story. My children love them!

genocolo Loc: Vail and Gasparilla Island

Lighthouse51 wrote:

I disagree. I make albums using an online service. One for each year. One for special occasions. They come out looking great, and you can organize your prints to tell a story. My children love them!

What online service do u use and are u happy with it! I know there are many. How many pages do you shoot for in each book?

Lighthouse51

Most recently, I have used Mixbook. I like it because you can go entirely "free form" in how you design your pages -- size and placement of photographs. Other services offer templates which you cannot alter.

Michael1079 Loc: Indiana

Interesting perspective, and I'm certain you are correct to a degree. Still, my wife has just spent the past month putting photo albums together for each pf our grandkids. It's like reading a book; I have the hardest time doing that on the Internet or a Kindle or Nook. I like holding the book in my hand, feeling its weight, and turning the pages! There is also something about being able to hold the photo in your hands as you take in the image. (My mother-in-law loved touching(!) the photo as she looked intently at it!)

So, have hope. While I'm reasonably certain that photo albums may soon be as rare as Kodak film, there are still some of us that think that's the best way to share the memories.

Lighthouse51

I agree completely.

pdsdville Loc: Midlothian, Tx

I'm 75 and I think that I'm part of the last generation to keep the "family" album. Sure you have tons of photos on your computer, on line, on backup drives, etc., etc., but who's going to look at them after you are gone? Are your kids going to go into your files and dig out the photos pertaining to them. I doubt it seriously. Fortunately I have several boxes of family photos going back generations that I will pass on. I do have a lot of the pre-digital photos we took when the kids were young but not much after the digital revolution. In general they don't seem to have the interest in the past, in my opinion.

William Royer Loc: Kansas

I inherited a large number of family pictures in albums, and as a photographer continually trying to organize a limited number — either digital or print — to pass along. To me, the absolutely critical aspect is to somehow identify the people or places and dates shown in the pictures. Without those ID’s they become much less valuable because within a couple of generations, no one is left who knows The Who/where/when of the subjects.

BigDaddy Loc: Pittsburgh, PA

gvarner wrote:

At 77, I suspect that the concept of the family album will disappear with my generation. The digital world is loaded with photos that are just a click away, so easy to do that children can do it, and easy to share. In the days of yore there was only one, maybe two family members who snapped away at birthdays and other events, making prints and storing them away for posterity. Now the ether is flooded with such images, take your pick.

I suspect you're right. All those old "albums" of yore had been stored in shoe boxes in the back of the closet for many, many years and no one ever looked at them until I found them and went through them, digitized the good ones and display them on my big screen HD TV's with the click of a button, or even better, voice commands, for anyone interested. Better yet, I get to repair any damage done over the past 100 years, and correct exposure/composition problems if needed and so on.

The down side, if there is one, is everyone today take so many pictures of everything that pictures are becoming even less interesting than they were when stuffed in the shoe box to begin with. It's so bad that popular web sites like Snapchat automatically send pictures to digital heaven after being viewed. No chance of even making it to the album or shoebox.