Is the age of the Photograph dead?

[Vance Mead]

As a corollary of this, the age of the handwritten record may be dead. My grandmother had a diary, wrote letters, had an address book with birthdays marked in it. These were very valuable when I was researching her family.

For my daughter, everything is online: Facebook, Instagram, etc. You might think that "the internet is forever", but any online record lasts only as long as someone wants to save it on a server.

[colmc]

I recently saw a missing person photo released by police with an instagram filter on it, piggy ears, nose, Betty Davis eyes.

[Jool]

After reading all the posts, something just occurred to me. 

How many of us will finally pass away not leaving details of where on the internet we have stored our photos or the user names/passwords to get at them.  They could be lost forever.  At least in the days of the "box of old photos" we would eventually find them when clearing the deceased relative's house.

Just a thought 

[chiddicks]

Some really good thoughts and ideas here, I certainly hadn't considered the online "life`' of an image being limited to the life expectancy of the server or its storage capacity. I wonder if others have?
Have we all got back up copies elsewhere? are the the images tagged who's who? I know thats certainly something I will now have to look at myself.

[jaybelnz]

Such technology won't need to look at any of mine. I can't think of any with people on them. If there are, I usually clone them out and the only known 'photos of me are on my passport, my driving license and my bus pass.

One thing people might ask in the future is why some people spent so much time photographing themselves.

😜😜👍👍 The selfie generation is alive and well!! 

[AntonyMMM]

No matter what the technology you use - if you want photos to be available for future generations then make good quality prints (using good quality archival ink/paper)  - label and store them properly.

The same applies to your research - otherwise  you are  completely reliant on your descendants having the interest, knowledge and time to access the information, store it and keep it updated as formats and storage technology changes.

When my father died he left some important family research  .... on floppy disks. Less than a decade old, yet we still had to hunt around to find the technology to read them .... I suspect in another decade or two that would not be possible (or extremely expensive).

In my previous career we had some computer data from the late 1980s that was stored on large format disks - but even one of the world's biggest IT companies couldn't access them (no working drive still existed that could read them).

[mare]

I think I overcompensated with taking photographic records of everything, having quite a minimal record of own childhood ... hence drawers full of photos and umpteen files now in digital!

Always made a point of at least dating back of photos after one school holidays trying to sort the few mum had in a chocolate box and although her memory was sharp, surprising how hard to try and get it right when some time has lapsed, even with names and places when they seemed familiar at the time.
 
Husband does a lot of photography too, we both try to keep up with our sorting and storing. I can print out a few at home but it's not that economical with the inks, so save a selection of family ones on a stick to take in to a printing outlet when they have good deals.  It is quite a mission to keep up with copies for others as well but do try to deal with it asap or too easy to overlook 

[Indiana.59]

I would sincerely hope not - there is a clarity to an old black and white photo that cannot be compared to the modern digital photo - to some even an 3D effect and a feeling of real nostalgia.

The advantages and disadvantages are many.

Photographs of old are seldom copied into digital form to be kept somewhere just to be found on the net by some unsuspected relatives years later.

Old photographs boxed then put away to just then head for the bin or skip usually following a bereavement along with negatives - just how many times have we seen that?

Yet with Digital - GPS that now comes with most new cameras can give you time and location - sent with seconds to most places in the world - no worries about leaving a legacy to those that want it.

Without the net just how would our research be done as it is today, information send via the net and sometimes photographs.

It is all down to the person who owns them to see that photos are filed up and logged for future generations, no matter what form they are taken in, or so be it . . .

[chiddicks]

is it a generation thing though? Are the teenagers today going to be as enthusiastic about recording and. saving images as we are?