# When I'm Dead and Gone ...



## JumboShrimp (Mar 19, 2015)

Sorry about that catchy title (from Blood, Sweat & Tears), but ... just wondering what everyone out there is thinking/doing when it comes to saving your images for posterity? Most of us have a few tons of images we work on and covet each day, and add thousands more from time to time. So then what? How are you going to leave them for your family and friends when you're "gone"?


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## old-pr-pix (Mar 19, 2015)

Shoe boxes full of old slides, negatives, prints, memory cards and thumb drives! 

Seriously though, I'm struggling with the answer to this question right now. I have five+ decades of collecting photos and the "achieve" grows larger each week. I've seen the digital world go through too many generations of media to have any confidence that any digital form I pick will have lasting value. And, I know no one is going to maintain my digital library, do back-ups, and migrations to new media formats or new software/file formats. At this point my thinking is that caustic editing is in order and that only the "BOB's" get printed and kept. (BOB= best of the best). So, for me I think the answer will be either individual prints or printed books.

I'll be very interested in other's responses.


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## Dylan777 (Mar 19, 2015)

I've been doing quite a bit with printing lately. I created and made my own photo books by years - little costly but really enjoy it. 

I'm keeping my RAW files on external HDs, not sure what future tech has to offer. I'm going with the flow.


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## tolusina (Mar 19, 2015)

JumboShrimp said:


> Sorry about that catchy title (from Blood, Sweat & Tears), but ...


#1 favorite song, ever, "And When I Die". Written by Laura Nyro who also recorded it as well as Peter Paul & Mary's performances.
".......swear there ain't no Heaven but I pray there ain't no hell".......

#2 fave is in the same album, BS&T's version of Billie Holiday and Arthur Herzog, Jr.,, "God Bless The Child".
Love the big brassy sound, David Clayton Thomas' vocals are just superb. He's still got that voice and energy.
-------

Dead me's photos, I've no clue if my surviving family will have much interest in most of them or will even go through them to see if there's any they want to save aside from whatever family prints I've made by then.
I know I'm having trouble with my Parents' archives, many faded snapshot prints, some few negatives and slides, reels of 8 mm. 
I've some of my maternal grandfather's photo and paint work that was rather fine, I'm keeping all of that for sure, but when I'm gone I doubt there'll be further interest.

It's a tough question you pose. 
All the effort and love put into these images, what will become of it? 
I wonder about my rather extensive tool collection too, office work types have little interest or inclination for hands on activities.

"......never know by livin', only my dyin' will tell........"




.


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## unfocused (Mar 19, 2015)

I am a baby boomer. Therefore I have no intention of dying.


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## AcutancePhotography (Mar 19, 2015)

Looking at it as objectively as I can, I don't see any reason why the photographs I take need to be preserved for future generations. 

Perhaps that picture of the alien shaking hands with Elvis while standing on the Grassy Knoll... nah, not even that one.


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## RLPhoto (Mar 19, 2015)

Leaving it all to someone very trustworthy who could keep the maintenance on the catalog. Mostly on hard drives with backups but it would be up to this person to move the data into whatever comes after my demise.


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## ajfotofilmagem (Mar 19, 2015)

This question haunts me. :-\

To this day, I record high quality DVD-R and HDD drives, but I hope to record SSD drives as soon as the price drops.
Yes, I do Prints of the most important photos.

I made tests with BluRay, but seem very vulnerable to fingerprints and fine dust.


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## fragilesi (Mar 19, 2015)

It will be up to my family, if they value any of them they will keep them. If they don't they won't. I'm certainly not planning on burdening anyone with the thought that they need to keep them because I wanted them to last.

And I think this whole thing about digital media and the loss of pictures is hardly new, there never has been a media that will last without ongoing care for your average person's pictures.


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## Tinky (Mar 19, 2015)

When it comes to my stills, they are just for me, my fun, my hobby. When I'm gone I won't care anyway, but I doubt they'll be of any interest to anybody except close family, and even then, they don't show that much interest just now anyway.

When it comes to video, I guess it'll be up to my customers. I try and save rushes for as long as possible after the event, but there comes a time (less so of an issue now with massive hard drives becoming so cheap) when traditionally I've had to clear drives and servers. 

I always consult the customer first and give them the opportunity to procure a hard drive for me to copy the material onto before deletion, and some stuff I keep as an archive, if it is of something notable, reuasable, etc.


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## zim (Mar 19, 2015)

I'll tell you tomorrow.........................


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## jcarapet (Mar 19, 2015)

I will save the ones that mean the most to me. I usually print the ones I love. The rest, while I would be pissed if they vanished today, are common and can disappear into the ether.


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## awinphoto (Mar 19, 2015)

It is sad, they say this generation will have the most amount of photos taken of themselves of all the generations, probably combined, but, will have the least amount of photos to show for it once they're gone. This is such a tough question... my grandpa, who was a "pro" photographer back in his day, has many shoe box's full of slides and what not... he even has given me old film strips and what not that he holds dear. But now, we have CD's which may become extinct in 5-10 years? Apple has stopped offering CD readers/burner in their latest computers... As well as netbooks and the like. External hard drives look good if entrusted to the right hands... assuming that they keep their relevancy in 10-15 years.... Perhaps then they will have some other storage device that replaces modern hard drives. In the end, prints are really the only was to ensure your images live on (assuming they dont eventually meet the demise of the trash can).


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## monkey44 (Mar 19, 2015)

I archive the 'best of the best' as a RAW file and a .tiff copy ... install both on a SSD storage drive, labeled by year and subject. I also keep a copy of every image I sold or published here as well, just for copyright back-up and evidence of my ownership.

The rest are just 'images' ... I store them for myself, and our memories of all our trips, adventures, kids sports while growing up, and family holidays.

Those, I just save as .jpg on spare HD (older) drives which were once my HD in my PC or laptop ... all my PC and Laptop now run on SSD ... so I have numerous HD for storage of less critical images ...


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## neuroanatomist (Mar 19, 2015)

A select set is on Flickr, which will be around forever. Right??


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## lion rock (Mar 19, 2015)

All listed in my will.
My heir will squander my vast picture files together with my vast estate ...
Won't matter to my cold dead body.
This is the reality of my view point.
-r


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## ajfotofilmagem (Mar 19, 2015)

neuroanatomist said:


> A select set is on Flickr, which will be around forever. Right??


I do not know if the "evolution of species" is regressing. :-\
But his joke is treated as concrete fact by many people who only knew digital photography. These people believe that Internet companies have long life. :-X

When archaeologists seek traces of the present civilization, will they find any readable photo? :

On the other hand, I would be happy if all SELFIE disappear from the earth.


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## DennyF (Mar 19, 2015)

Don't much care. In the film era, I would periodically bore my family to death with slide shows. It was painfully apparent they were most interested in slides that included each of them.

So, my photos are primarily for my enjoyment. If I feel others would have an interest in a photo, I share it with them. But no one can enjoy them as much as I do. When I look at a photo I've taken, I can remember nearly everything about that moment.

As for exit music, my favorite is "Please Speak Well of Me" by the Weepies.


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## neuroanatomist (Mar 19, 2015)

ajfotofilmagem said:


> When archaeologists seek traces of the present civilization, will they find any readable photo?



Perhaps we should start advocating that everyone print their photo libraries on 3D printers, as fodder for future archeologists (or perhaps extraterrestrial xenoarcheologists if we manage to wipe out our own species).


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## Besisika (Mar 19, 2015)

I haven't really thought about it, but thanks for bringing up the subject, will think about it from now on, it is going to take sometime to give you the answer. Let's see what others have in mind.


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## Famateur (Mar 19, 2015)

My take on it:


Drives Fail
Formats Become Obsolete
Online Businesses Fold
Prints Fade, Tear or Combust

As with managing other types of risk, diversity is the key. For personal photos, I backup files in multiple formats and locations and print my favorites.


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## MintChocs (Mar 19, 2015)

Prints of the most important family photos, nobody in my family is interested in my photos apart from the family/relative ones.As I have no heirs, I tried to get my 16yr old niece interested in photography but to no avail. Sort of makes me think about home movies, those will probably end up lost to time so at least with prints there is a slim chance some will be around. (not sure about the longevity of prints from my home printer but they do claim a hundred years! Lol)


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Mar 19, 2015)

Being that I'm well up there in years. I've already mailed DVD's of family photos to about 20 cousins. The photos are also posted online, and on backup CD's, but I don't expect to rely on just any one method.

My Ancestors photos going back over 100 years are also on Ancestry.com, but not recent photos.


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## IgotGASbadDude (Mar 19, 2015)

ajfotofilmagem said:


> I would be happy if all SELFIE disappear from the earth.



THIS TIMES INFINITY . . . ;D


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## agierke (Mar 19, 2015)

this is a problem photography has always dealt with. archivability of a photo has always been greatly deficient compared to that of paintings and sculpture. optimistically we get a 100 years...maybe a bit more, more likely alot less....

i imagine i am going to get rid of 90% of my photos before i die. i have thought that i would like to get maybe the top 1-2% archivally printed so that there is a bit of life for my photography beyond my death but one has to ask if it really matters that much.

cant take it with you, wont be around to care right?


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## Zen (Mar 19, 2015)

My widow and kids will decide if any are worth keeping. I hope they will decide to keep the old photos of family - so that family history is retained. But, it will be entirely up to them.

Too bad, but as you reach an advanced age, you realize that the thousands of photos you made for enjoyment, or to record road trips you took with your Bride, just don't matter very much any more. 

Zen


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## Omni Images (Mar 20, 2015)

ajfotofilmagem said:


> neuroanatomist said:
> 
> 
> > A select set is on Flickr, which will be around forever. Right??
> ...



I'm in the process of chiseling all my "selfies" into life size marble statues for posterity, and of course my kids are going to love lugging them around in my memory.


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## Famateur (Mar 20, 2015)

Omni Images said:


> ajfotofilmagem said:
> 
> 
> > neuroanatomist said:
> ...



LOL...I love it. Just make sure to chisel yourself with your arm outstretched with a chisel in your hand pointed back toward you. ;D


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## distant.star (Mar 20, 2015)

unfocused said:


> I am a baby boomer. Therefore I have no intention of dying.



Now, there's a fate worse than death!!


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## dswtan (Mar 20, 2015)

Seems appropriate: 

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."


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## Tinky (Mar 20, 2015)

ajfotofilmagem said:


> On the other hand, I would be happy if all SELFIE disappear from the earth.



When I first saw a SELFIE STICK I thought "great, a truncheon for coshing the vain...."


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## TeT (Mar 24, 2015)

They will be accessible... beyond that "shrug"


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## Zeidora (Mar 24, 2015)

neuroanatomist said:


> A select set is on Flickr, which will be around forever. Right??



You must be joking, Dr. Brain  [Sorry, could not help myself]


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## Zeidora (Mar 24, 2015)

Stored on two fat RAID1 arrays in two different locations. Still also have some 30K slides (many scanned, but not all), and a bunch of 4x5 chromes. Have a few prints, but not too many. 

I am a natural history museum curator, so cataloging is critical. I use a Filemaker relational database to catalog and annotate all my images including thumbnails. Images are sequentially numbered in series from 1 to currently 11,xxx; those are only the light optical images. I use NameMangler to change the default file names to my sequential series. Most of my shots are nature/natural history, so I catalog them by identification & classification plus location with GPS coordinates. Then there are some additional fields on gear used and some notes (filters, z-stacking, lighting, biological information). Natural history images are worthless without good data. There is also a hard-copy of the db information, just in case.

[I have not catalogued the SEM images that way, they are just in hierarchical directories from genus - species - museum-lot/collection-number; metadata are with the already captured specimen data. The ~13K SEM images from my last book are all on-line in an access-protected site; there are some copyright issues with specimen images, so I can't make it open-access. People can request access, but have to confirm personal use. Once I shuffled off, that access restriction can be removed: good luck suing me then!].

Some are on a stock-agency site, and royalties eventually go to a designated beneficiary. After retirement, I want to put a bunch on CalPhoto. This seems to be a good avenue for images that may be used for education, and still offers the option of contacting me (or later beneficiary) directly for any commercial application. This also eliminates the %$#&@@@ stock-agency and its rip-off.

The photo library is mentioned in my will with specific instruction on use.


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## JumboShrimp (Mar 24, 2015)

"And, I know no one is going to maintain my digital library, do back-ups, and migrations to new media formats or new software/file formats. At this point my thinking is that caustic editing is in order and that only the "BOB's" get printed and kept. (BOB= best of the best). So, for me I think the answer will be either individual prints or printed books."

The OP heartily agrees with this wise person.


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## Hillsilly (Mar 25, 2015)

We film shooters have another option - negatives and transparencies.


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## Ozarker (Apr 2, 2015)

My very best will be on canvas. We decorate our home with them. I have been looking into creating some photo books also.

I have a couple of aunts who have horded all the old photos of my grandparents and photos of us all from when we were young. Nobody ever gets to see them. It is as though letting others make copies will somehow lessen their value, which is purely sentimental anyway.

The wife and I have one child. She'll get everything I (we) have. Will she value them? I hope so because part of my intention is to preserve through photos our way of life.

Just thought about it, but it may well be that things uploaded to the genealogy websites will last longer than anything. I have a strong interest in that. Found a photo of one of my great, great grandfathers sitting on a mule pulled mower from way, way back. It was wonderful to see and copy. So, while those real close to us might not care, it may be someone further down the line will. Think I'll start checking upon what can be uploaded. Maybe even letters for those in the future. Hmmmmm. This is a great thread. Thanks for starting it.


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