Lost Capa Negs Found - The Mexican Suitcase

I worked for a commercial studio back in the mid 90's. They had an intern talk them into going digital with a Leaf DCB and a couple 1st Gen powermacs, a couple 9Gig harddrives (a $3k apiece then) and a cd-burner and a tape drive for larger back-ups. I inherited the upkeep and troubleshooting when the intern departed. Within 3 years time, both of the 9 Gig drives had tanked, any archive CD older than 2 years was suspect (randomly corrupt files) and only the tape drive had any reliability.

I've got some glass negs from the early 1900s, they're not in great shape, but there's still a latent image than can be printed. unlike most corrupt files pulled from a cd.

so does anyone by the hype with the archival gold dvd-r/cd-r, or are you, like me, shooting both film and digital to cover your bases.

oh and why can't we get affordable film recorders?
 
Sorry to be, um, negative, but was the reason Bill Pierce was asked onboard really to host Resurrection MCMLXXVII of the "Film Is Eternal and Digital Is Evil" thread-from-hell? Pfft...
 
In my work as a freelance computer tech, I've had to deal with a lot of fried hard disks of data, including digital snaps, that weren't backed up, and are not coming back (unless the client pops for sending the HD to DriveSavers or the like for a "CSI"-style forensic recovery job...and you don't want to know what the tab for that can come to).

I've also had some "name-brand" CD-Rs flame-out on me after three years or so, even when stored in darkness (never, ever, leave a recodrable CD/DVD exposed to sunlight for any extended period). I've now standardized on Verbatim DataLifePlus CD/DVD media for this very reason: short of blowing lots of cash for gold-media CD/DVDs, these help cut my potential losses.

Redundant storage (multiple HDs) is certainly better than nothing, but when we're in an age where we're talking terabytes, not even gigabytes any more, things can get unweildy awfully fast:

Little boxes
On my workdesk
Little boxes
Filled with terabytes
Little boxes, techy boxes
Wired boxes, in a row
There's a Maxtor, and a Quantum
And a bunch of Western Digitials
And they're al filled up with terabytes
And I pray one doesn't blow

 (With apologies to Malvina Reynolds)

And, yes, perhaps the planet gets hammered by a decent-sized asteroid some time off in the future and all of this becomes moot. But I'd still like my images to hang around a bit, whether anyone's interested in them or not.

Film ain't perfect in this regard, either, of course, but it's easier for me to keep under wraps, so it remains my principal medium, both for work and personal stuff.

Whatever your views on film vs. digital, trust me on the CD/DVD issue.


- Barrett
 
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"If digital is worthless as an archival medium, then the history of photography of the 21st century and future centuries will be lost. Because digital is the future and film is the past."

What was that quote about those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it? The future is looking pretty bleak.
 
furcafe said:
Does history have no value?

Mankind survived for millennia without many good things, like the wheel, writing, & indoor plumbing, but we weren't necessarily better off for lacking those things. I believe records, including photos, are important because history is important & you can get a better picture, pardon the pun, of the past when you have more material to work with. And while you may not see much value in photos of your grandparents or parents, your children might.
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Well, we have centuries of history but we learn exactly nothing from it. Wars, hunger, violence, abuse, etc. are still rampant. So, if history is so important because we learn from it, why don't we learn from it. Reality contradicts the statement.

Is that we find history important because we're told it is, or because it really is so? If the latter, why is it important?
 
Frankly it is getting too philosophical. In essence though it seems yet another case of downplaying a problem that one can't (or unwilling) to fix.

I am happy that Capa negs were found and looking forward to seeing "new" images from the rolls. The finds like this are rare but they highlight the importance of archival qualities of a medium.
 
LBJ, of all people, observed “We can draw lessons from the past, but we cannot live in it” and the present is digital whether we like it or not. When my daughter fills the memory card on her little P&S she just deletes some shots that are old or unwanted, very few even get as far as a hard-drive, times change
 
RML said:
Well, we have centuries of history but we learn exactly nothing from it. Wars, hunger, violence, abuse, etc. are still rampant. So, if history is so important because we learn from it, why don't we learn from it. Reality contradicts the statement.

Is that we find history important because we're told it is, or because it really is so? If the latter, why is it important?
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I think we are all familiar with the phenomenon of human ignorance.

"Lots of people go to school and don't learn anything, so why are schools important?"

They are important because they provide the possibility to learn something. Lots of people learn something from it. Others don't, but those don't invalidate the institution as such. Same thing with history and the study of it.

Philipp
 
rxmd said:
I think we are all familiar with the phenomenon of human ignorance.

"Lots of people go to school and don't learn anything, so why are schools important?"

They are important because they provide the possibility to learn something. Lots of people learn something from it. Others don't, but those don't invalidate the institution as such. Same thing with history and the study of it.

Philipp
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Philipp, I don't disagree with you but still the argument sounds like circular reasoning: it's important because we can learn from/we find it important, so it's important. I find history interesting but to say that that makes it important is too pretentious, especially seen on a larger scale on a larger time frame.

That history is little or not taken as a base for learning is not ignorance. It's because the circumstances are different and no old lessons learned can be applied to these new circumstances.

I'm just a bumpkin; never studied history or philosophy, so what do I know I'm talking about? :)
 
That history is little or not taken as a base for learning is not ignorance. It's because the circumstances are different and no old lessons learned can be applied to these new circumstances.
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I can't help but think that our current U.S. administration subscribes to this belief.
 
True, photos alone aren't enough. I regret that I didn't know my grandfathers better before they died; I'm sure both had some great stories to tell that I never got to hear.

sjw617 said:
When my Dad's parents died he inherited some picture albums. They were pictures of people in their finest having a professional portrait done. There are rubber stamped photographers name and addresses (Edinburgh or Glasgow) on the backs. These were photos from the 1880's to early 1900's. They were the people who came over, family and friends who did not make the trip and people who died very young. Some you can see are family by the resemblance, my Dad recognized some, but most of them... we have no idea who they are.
The pictures survived (pretty well) but the story is lost.

Steve
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sitemistic said:
I think many agree it's an anomaly that this old film survived. Most film of the type in these boxes either with or without special storage have turned to dust by now. The movie industry has struggled with the problem for years.
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Yes and no. Oddly enough one of the biggest reasons why so many movie negs are in such bad shape, is because they were sealed in cans. You need to leave a certain amount of ventilation, to prevent some of the gases that develop during storage from attacking the negative. So, the old shoe box in the closet is almost ideal.

Many early films were also destroyed on purpose, because in the pre-VHS era, very few films had a life after their first run. They ran once and were considered dead wood. Storage costs money and to the studios, the bottom line is everything (to this day).

Nitrate films were also destroyed, because they were considered a fire hazard and studios didn't want to pay for a transfer to safety stock.

Certain modern film stocks with an estar (spelling?) base, have a predicted lifespan of 500 years. Your standard Tri-X neg is expected to last well over 100 years. C41 lasts about 20-40 years. Kodachrome seems to last extremely long, without fading, if stored in the dark.

There has recently been a trend of shooting valuable digital files to film negative via a LVT Rhino for longterm storage.
 
RML said:
That history is little or not taken as a base for learning is not ignorance. It's because the circumstances are different and no old lessons learned can be applied to these new circumstances.
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If you are going to bring up scale RML, I'd say it is ignorant to assume circumstances are that different and old lessons can't be applied. Yes, maybe on a small scale you can no longer apply the specific lessons for a product or medium that no longer exists. But when you study history it is obvious what the suppression of learning and understanding, the ignorance of history and it's lessons, has had on human societies.
 
Tuolumne - the /T(ime traveller)

Tuolumne - the /T(ime traveller)

Ok, I am a time traveller from the future and I want you all to know that all of your tiff and jpg, yes and even raw files, are still readable or convertible on your CDs, DVDs and USB 2.0 peripherals in the year 3000. Since in 3000 we are all immortal and do time travel in our spare time when we are not vacationing, we have no need of recorded images any longer. We are capable of travleing anywhere in time to see any event as it unfolds. :D

/T
 
jlw said:
Sorry to be, um, negative, but was the reason Bill Pierce was asked onboard really to host Resurrection MCMLXXVII of the "Film Is Eternal and Digital Is Evil" thread-from-hell? Pfft...
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Told you there was a flame war brewing. :)

/T
 
Tuolumne said:
Ok, I am a time traveller from the future and I want you all to know that all of your tiff and jpg, yes and even raw files, are still readable or convertible on your CDs, DVDs and USB 2.0 peripherals in the year 3000. Since in 3000 we are all immortal and do time travel in our spare time when we are not vacationing, we have no need of recorded images any longer. We are capable of travleing anywhere in time to see any event as it unfolds. :D

/T
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is film dead yet??

we need to know

(joke sorry)
 
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