Losing the historic record?

[dfoo]

I'm not pointing blame really. I'm saying, that if you are not fastidious, then you can lose the digital data much more easily than a silver negative. Ultimately "reading" a negative is ultimately a far difference piece of work from reading a bunch of raw bytes on some obsolete piece of hardware...

Let me put it this way. I put a 8inch floppy in from of you containing a digital file, and a silver negative. You have absolutely no hardware, nor can you procure it. You have to invent everything from scratch. Which are you going produce an image from first?

 

[Micky D]

You can't hold a digital image can you?
At a junk store a few weeks back I found a suitcase full of glass negs. Held a few up to the light, beautiful!

 

[pesphoto]

You can't hold a digital image can you?
At a junk store a few weeks back I found a suitcase full of glass negs. Held a few up to the light, beautiful!

Wait! And they havent exploded or disintigrated? Imagine that.... 🙂
Well...to be fair, you can hold a digital image. I have seen some beautiful prints not made in a traditional darkroom.

 

[bmattock]

Let me put it this way. I put a 8inch floppy in from of you containing a digital file, and a silver negative. You have absolutely no hardware, nor can you procure it. You have to invent everything from scratch. Which are you going produce an image from first?

And if my aunt had testicles, she'd be my uncle.

You can posit imaginary scenarios by which I would only be able to look at a photo if it were produced on film - but I don't live in that world, and neither do you, judging from the fact that you can post here. Imaginary scenarios that don't actually exist aren't really good arguments.

 

[Micky D]

Wait! And they havent exploded or disintigrated? Imagine that.... 🙂

There must have been about a hundred in there, just lightly packed in old newspaper. Not one broken.

 

[pesphoto]

And if my aunt had testicles, she'd be my uncle.

a....ha...ha!!

 

[Micky D]

I am boycotting this thread.🙄

 

[bmattock]

You can't hold a digital image can you?
At a junk store a few weeks back I found a suitcase full of glass negs. Held a few up to the light, beautiful!

Show me the negatives that recorded the Kennedy years. You know, the ones that were lost in 911.

http://www.epuk.org/News-snippets/743/settlement-over-lost-jfk-negs

Go on, show them to me. Film lasts forever. SHOW THEM TO ME!

You can't. They're gone. There are a few copies out there, inferior copies made from prints that already existed. The large majority of them were utterly destroyed.

Now tell me how many bank accounts were wiped out because the data in the computers that were destroyed was likewise ruined. Go on, tell me how many people lost their savings. I'll tell you - it was none. Because the data was digital and it was stored in a number of locations. Each copy exactly identical to the original.

Show me all the glass negatives that floated down the river into the ocean when Katrina hit New Orleans. Oh, that's right, you can't. Because they are gone and there are no copies.

 

[dfoo]

...
You can posit imaginary scenarios by which I would only be able to look at a photo if it were produced on film - but I don't live in that world, and neither do you, judging from the fact that you can post here. Imaginary scenarios that don't actually exist aren't really good arguments.

Ok, you don't want to acknowledge the point. Fair enough.

 

[chris000]

I am boycotting this thread.🙄

Yes, as the original poster I apologise, it has unfortunately degenerated into another pointless debate on the relative merits/demerits of film and digital.

This misses my original point that regardless of the photographic medium used or subsequent storage, it is becoming more difficult, in the UK at least, to take many of these pictures at all.

At the moment this seems to be regarded by officials and politicians as of little importance, a few whingeing photographers who need to bow to the greater good of defeating terrorism and crime. Leaving aside the fact that harassment of innocent photographers is unlikely to have any impact on either terrorism or crime, the potential loss of a record of everyday life and events does not seem to have been considered and yet will I think significantly damage the study of our history a hundred years from now.

Storage issues and relatives over enthusiastically divesting themselves of the life's work of the deceased are problems that have always been with us in one form or another.

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

Digital is inherently more durable than film.

Unfortunately, this isn't so. CDs recorded by amateurs ten years ago are beginning to deteriorate, DVDs are already obsolete, BluRay will be in about 2 or 5 years, hard drives tend to crash after five or so years of constant use, and even if they survive, the coating on hard drives which hold the magnetized 1s and 0s isn't permanent.

All storage media uses one or another format "standard" which may not necessarily be supported in 60 years from now.

It is easier to archive film given the wealth of knowledge on archiving techniques, than it is digital media (specially since a grave majority of the population either doesn't care or doesn't care enough to know reasonably proper storage methods).

In short, it is not inherently more durable. If they switched from a magnetic or optic storage technology to a true analog medium (i.e. a titanium record) then it'd be inherently more durable.

 

[bmattock]

Unfortunately, this isn't so. CDs recorded by amateurs ten years ago are beginning to deteriorate, DVDs are already obsolete, BluRay will be in about 2 or 5 years, hard drives tend to crash after five or so years of constant use, and even if they survive, the coating on hard drives which hold the magnetized 1s and 0s isn't permanent.

You haven't read any of my statements. It is so, because digital copies are 100% accurate copies. So a CD, DVD, or any other physical format can and should be copied regularly, multiple copies made, and stored in a variety of locations. Digital is absolutely, 100% more archival than film.

All storage media uses one or another format "standard" which may not necessarily be supported in 60 years from now.

Failure to update media is the fault of the humans involved in the process, just as leaving an LP record in the car on a hot day is not the fault of the LP.

It is easier to archive film given the wealth of knowledge on archiving techniques, than it is digital media (specially since a grave majority of the population either doesn't care or doesn't care enough to know reasonably
proper storage methods).

But no matter how film is archived, and how much care is taken with it, it is an organic material which will eventually degrade - whether that is 30 years or 300 years into the future. Copies are not 100% accurate, there is always degradation of the original. Film does not 'last forever' no matter what you do - digital can if taken care of properly.

In short, it is not inherently more durable. If they switched from a magnetic or optic storage technology to a true analog medium (i.e. a titanium record) then it'd be inherently more durable.

You're wrong. You're arguing that people are idiots - and I'd have to agree with you there. They complain because their hard drive died and their photos are gone. But they know full well that hard drives die. They failed to do any kind of backup - and that's the hard drive's fault?

I repeat, since you apparently did not read any of my preceding statements, that digital copies are bit-for-bit exact copies of the original file. Therefore, an infinite number of copies can be made, for an infinite period of time into the future.

If maintained, digital files live forever. Even if maintained, film does not. If neither is maintained, they degrade quickly. Which degrades more quickly? Who cares - if you don't care to maintain your photos, you get what you get.

 

[Dan States]

If maintained. That's the hard part.

I just happened to find a box of negatives dating back about 100 years that my family had completely forgotten. Not that interesting then I suppose, but to me now it's like a gold mine. My scanner is working overtime. I hope my hard drive lasts through all the generations it will take for my images to become interesting again!

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

You haven't read any of my statements.

You don't need to update film. Just do proper archiving from the get-go and you're good to go. No maintenance.

Having to "refresh" digital copies is not "inherently" more durable. If you have to refresh your digital copies every single time technologies change, you're jumping from one ship to another. That is not "durable". The process may be, but the "inherent" disappears when maintenance is required.

It's like arguing that houses made of wood are "inherently" more durable than concrete houses, as long as you keep on replacing the wood. It doesn't mean that concrete is indestructible or not prone to environmental corrosion.

Yes, I read your statements.

 

[bmattock]

You don't need to update film. Just do proper archiving from the get-go and you're good to go. No maintenance.

It does not last forever. It has an upper limit on how long it will last before degrading, be that decades or centuries - no matter how well you take care of it.

Having to "refresh" digital copies is not "inherently" more durable. If you have to refresh your digital copies every single time technologies change, you're jumping from one ship to another. That is not "durable". The process may be, but the "inherent" disappears when maintenance is required.

Let's not lose sight of the goal, which is to maintain copies of our photos. If one wishes to do so with digital, one makes copies, keeps formats updated, and makes duplicates, kept in various physical locations. In this manner, digital is inherently more durable than film, and there really can't be any rational argument about it.

If, on the other hand, one wishes to argue that a CD will eventually either lose its spots and become unreadable, or become a physical oddity that no future computer can read, that would probably be true - and would prove nothing. We who do this for a living are quite aware of how to maintain data, and we do it. If you want it to live forever, you can have that. Failing to update is a human flaw.

What you're basically arguing is that digital photos are not inherently more durable than film because you don't care for the way digital media should be preserved. Your argument posits that the advantages of digital storage be completely ignored so that your argument will seem stronger. No one who wanted to keep their photos would do that.

 

[aad]

Famous artists will have no trouble with digital archives. I don't worry about them.

My friends invited me over to see their new baby last night. I took a few pictures, and they shared theirs with me-all stored on their in-camera SD card. Hundreds of them. Many quite lovely.

They have already lost some pictures. Completely. They are not idiots, they are wonderful, intelligent people. They just have lives and concerns that reside outside the area of photography. These are the memories at risk.

Decent prints will help them here, either from digital or film, but they likely won't have the money to print them all, nor the time to sort out the "keepers".

So all that will likely remain of last night, after 20 years have passed, will be the prints I give them, and the negatives in my folder. And of all the pictures taken around the world yesterday, of babies and beauties, only these will matter to them, and to me.

 

[bmattock]

They have already lost some pictures. Completely. They are not idiots, they are wonderful, intelligent people. They just have lives and concerns that reside outside the area of photography. These are the memories at risk.

And this is the core of the concept of archiving data - photos or anything else. The first thing one must do is to establish how important it is to you. If it is not terribly important, then the actions that need be taken can be suitably casual as well. Won't last forever, but if you don't mind that, then no problem.

The only problem occurs when people assign maximum value to the long-term survival of their archive, but refuse to take the necessary steps to achieve that goal, then complain that digital is 'not a durable medium'. It is as durable as people are willing to make it. Film is durable up to the point where the organic components themselves degrade, which can be a very very long time if the need for archiving is great.

 

[aad]

Yes, I think the advantage of film is in the "accidental archive". What seems unimportant today may well be of great value in 50 years. Of course, if we knew what will be important in 50 years...

 

[bmattock]

Yes, I think the advantage of film is in the "accidental archive". What seems unimportant today may well be of great value in 50 years. Of course, if we knew what will be important in 50 years...

Well said, I concur.

 

[Al Kaplan]

The largest part of my income in 2008 was from B&W images in my files from the 1960's and 1970's. A lot of them were pictures that most people would have deleted from a digital file had that been possible back then. Many are blah boring pictures of unknown everyday people when they were much younger, and had yet to make their mark on the world. You never know who is going to be the one that makes you wish that you still had those damned negatives.

Sure, it would be easier to locate them if they were stored in a digital format, but at this point who would have the time to digitize nearly half a century's worth of negatives? Or recopy them every five years or so? Any volunteers?

I see digital prints selling in galleries. They were shot in digital. The art world has no problem with that. There's no choice. What's done is done. Offer the collector a choice between a gelatin silver print made by or under the direction of the photographer, or a digital print from the same negative? The analog silver print commands a sizeable premium. That's reality.

We've entered a new era where the majority of photography is digital and color. There's no way to tell what might survive at all for fifty years and beyond. What survives will most likely still be sought after by historians and publishers if the who and the what are of interest.

Who has ever heard of a newspaper photographer by the name of A.R. Packard? I have a couple of 11x14 prints that he shot on 4x5. One, dated 1918, was signed and dated on the negative. The other is signed and dated 1906 on the print. Perfectly blah shots of square rigger whaling ships, some of the sails still unfurled, tied up at the docks in my home town of New Bedford, Massachusettes. Another ship is in the background, and a few longboats, the ones they actually harpooned the whales from, are tied up in the foreground.

I purchased the prints from him back in the mid 1960's when he was close to 90, and they've hung in my livingroom all these years. He was lucky. He got all of his negatives from the paper, and his daughter planned to keep them safe. At the time he was grateful to have a nice income from his files of images from a long gone era.