Photography - The legacy left behind... YOUR legacy (Page 8): Funny thing, I drove a couple hours today to meet with my sister and go through my moms things. One of the most...

Rockystick

Funny thing, I drove a couple hours today to meet with my sister and go through my moms things. One of the most thought-provoking were the great number of albums and boxes of photos. I told her, unless we do something special like becoming president, know one will remember us, just like these photos of our mom’s. In the past, I’ll bet folks sat round and at times enjoyed looking through these photos; however, today there are far more ways to occupy time. My kids aren’t even interested now, and in two generations, very few would find my hard drives full of photographs at all worth their time, even IF they are accessible. Almost sad. My final comment with her was,” I’m glad at least, I believe God will remember us.”

dougbev3 Loc: Pueblo, Colorado

Just take pictures, the hell with tomorrow. Live for yourself today... Enjoy today with a great picture of it.... Whether of not it is looked at ever again, you have frozen a slice of time, for all to see... if they want to see it, but it will be those eyes that we will not see that will have missed it, not ours...

David in Dallas Loc: Dallas, Texas, USA

My photos are on Flickr. I guess they'll be there for a while. Some of them are archived on other fora, and will also survive there for a while. However, I don't envision my pictures having an infinite life. I have no children and grandchildren, and my 2 nephews aren't really close. All my cousins are in their 60s or older and I'm now 80. I do know that some of my images are being viewed on Flickr, so some folks are getting enjoyment out of them, I guess.

wesm Loc: Los Altos CA

Rongnongno wrote:

This is not a comfortable subject. br br Many fol... (show quote)

My Dad was a pretty good photographer. He had, I think, an old Hassleblad; I'm really not sure. He had his darkroom, he did almost all black and white. He had some absolutely amazing pictures of the Southwest, southern Arizona, you could just feel the heat radiating from the rocks, feel the points on the thorns of the saguaros.
When he died, I had to clean all that stuff out, the sole surviving relative. He had boxes and boxes of 4x5 prints he had made. I ended up having to throw almost all of it away. It was one of the hardest things I've ever experienced.

Ed Greding Loc: Texas

I regard a photograph as being almost magical. It is a little slice out of the river of time's vastness. Even if my photos don't survive me by more than a generation, I have the consolation that some were significant to me and to my family. In this forum I have seen wonderful photos depict things, scenery and life forms that may not even exist in the future. If some survive over a long period, they may become historically valuable. At the least, they bring back to me events and people long forgotten. And, even if none survive, photography is a creative endeavor, like painting, recording our own music, or writing. We human beings enjoy these activities, which at the very least enrich our lives, and offer us the hope, however remote, that other people in the future may become inspired by them. I assert that, even if you are convinced that your photos will mean nothing to anyone else, keep right on taking them if you love doing it!

Stephan G

geodowns wrote:

Now I feel older than I am... I was trying to start cleaning out my basement but found out that it was easier 30 years ago... where all this stuff come from....? Huummff..!!

Dad: Son , why are your grades in History so low? I always had B+ when I was your age.
Son: Dad, we have more History now than you did then.

As a computer geek informed me, "Your input is larger than your output." Moving to a smaller house from one twice the size didn't help either.

In regards to photography, were it not for the Space program (double entendre intended), I would not have enough room in my garage filing cabinets to hold all of my photographs without having to add Lean-to sheds. (Note: Miniaturization was propelled by the government Space program.) And it does give new meaning to generational gaps. The space required to store the previous generation's collections.

CeeJay Loc: Southeast PA

Do your family a favor and write a Bio of yourself and include the pictures you have taken along with who ,what , when and where. If you like birds, include pictures of birds you've taken, the kind of bird, where it was taken, etc.. If you like traveling, include descriptions of landscapes or interesting buildings. And please, if its a picture of family, add the names of the people in the photo - always.
Print your work out, identify what it is and put it in a container that someone will want to keep in the family or donate it to your local historical society. Your life of photos should never die with you. All of us amateur family historians will be grateful for you thinking about your legacy.

Just my 2 cents

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

Rongnongno wrote:

Or on a HMTL page with a link to the original.

This allows for extended description as well as printing later on as the original is present as a link.

Certainly an HTML page allows for a lot more description on the photo. However, I don't trust HTML to stick around. Prints are better. HTML requires a host or server, which requires maintenance. The print requires some maintenance in that it has to be kept dry and out of sunlight and away from chewing things, but that's a lot easier than keeping your HTML page alive for 50 years or more.

therwol Loc: USA

Rongnongno wrote:

This is not a comfortable subject. br br Many fol... (show quote)

My "family and friends" pictures are separated from my "hobby" pictures and cataloged well enough so that those who follow me will have no difficulty picking them out. I'm sure they will enjoy and appreciate them as much as I enjoy and appreciate the (fewer) pictures my father preserved. I don't care what they do with the rest. The "hobby" aspect of photography is for me in my lifetime.

blackest Loc: Ireland

DirtFarmer wrote:

Certainly an HTML page allows for a lot more description on the photo. However, I don't trust HTML to stick around. Prints are better. HTML requires a host or server, which requires maintenance. The print requires some maintenance in that it has to be kept dry and out of sunlight and away from chewing things, but that's a lot easier than keeping your HTML page alive for 50 years or more.

Html files are files in folders on a server usually but they don't have to be on a server to work as long as the links are relative not absolute. I'm not going to teach you basic html but its essentially trivial to create relative links that can be loaded from a file system rather than just a webserver the relative links work on both (an absolute link wouldn't necessarily work).

Html can be served from a drive or a server. Html has different versions current standards are html5 but older versions still work because the first line of a html page states its html and which version of html its written for.

html is written in plain text, even in a text editor you can read the content even if you don't understand the layout. in 50 years time we might be using html35 or something different it really doesn't matter as long as you have a text editor you would be able to figure it out. Unless we manage to bomb ourselves back to the stone age or maybe a big asteroid hits html will be around and if we do manage to have a suitably large disaster your prints are liable to end up on the fire with one of your descendants trying to keep themselves warm in a nuclear winter...

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

blackest wrote:

Html files are files in folders on a server usuall... (show quote)

Yes, from the post I was replying to, I was thinking of HTML in context of the internet. Of course the file can be local.

However, depending on how you generate the HTML file, it could be in clear text but if you use a program to generate the HTML file it could be filled with tags and javascript that would obfuscate the text when read on a word processor or text editor. In that case the clear text becomes much more difficult to read.

So if you write your own HTML in a simple format that would probably work. HTML isn't that hard to write with a little practice. Many browsers also can use HTML validation plugins to make it easier to polish things.

But my original comment a few posts ago was about prints, and placing text on them in such a way that if they are copied (by photographing them or using a scanner, or the equivalent process in the future), the text is copied along with the image. I was warning against merely writing on the back of the print or adding metadata to a jpg file. The whole point is to make it as simple as possible to preserve the text along with the image so that anyone viewing the result will see the information as well as the picture.

Bobspez Loc: Southern NJ, USA

Some of us never met our grandparents. Most of us never knew about our great grandparents. What of our great, great grandparents? They mostly (unless famous) are gone from the memory of all who live today. That's what I expect of my legacy. It will be alive as long as those who knew me are around. When they are gone, then nothing. Dust thou art and to dust you shall return.

Maik723

al13 wrote:

Have you been in a Cracker Barrel Resturant and lo... (show quote)

I think you're on to something......... I like your comments........... Makes a lot of sense!👍🏿

scarlettp

I'm 13 years old and I absolutely love taking photos on my broken canon rebel xt
The buttons are broken but I can still take photos

therwol Loc: USA

Bobspez wrote:

That's what I expect of my legacy. It will be alive as long as those who knew me are around.

Sounds like you've attended a Jewish funeral.