Percentage of total pictures, sure. But the absolute number of pictures preserved will likely increase.
The number of pictures archived per person per year is harder to guess at and that's an interesting question.
When I deliver a job, it's typically a CD or DVD containing “adjusted” JPG (& PSD) files made from the original Raw. In a few cases, where the client has an in-house graphics department, I include the original, un-adjusted Raw files with the JPGs. In some cases, I burn 2 copies of the optical final. I always archive my work to optical.
Now, I would think, the first thing to happen with the delivered optical, is once it’s examined for it’s contents, the files would be moved to the client’s HDD. I honestly don’t know what happens in many cases. What I do know is that every year, one or two of my clients will call in a panic, needing a copy of a previous job ASAP. They've lost the delivered disks. This happened about 2 weeks ago. The Publications Director for the organization in this case, loaned the copies to others in the group, (over 100 people on site) and the work disappeared. This particular job was almost a year old. I have copies and store them on DVDs. As often as I see this happen, I wonder how many photos will disappear, not due to any flaw in the storage media, but because of human nonsense. This kind of thing could happen with any media.
Some lost photos are found, in time. If you’re interested in a great example: Go to
http://www.fraenkelgallery.com/ under the Artists tab look at the work of E. J. Bellocq. His work was lost and then found ( by Lee Friedlander). There is also a listing for “Photographer Unknown”.
p.
