Pál_K
Cameras. I has it.
Like many people here, I have albums full of photos and I have various electronic media full of photos.
For the past few months I’ve been scanning negatives from photos I made in the 1970’s and I’m seeing these photos for the very first time (back then I could afford only to develop my own negatives and print only perhaps 1% of my work). I’m adding notes and comments to these photos. I would like to think that someone would enjoy them and cherish them - not only the photos I’ve made, but also very old family photos that are from the 1890’s as well.
Perhaps you have relatives who will appreciate your collection of photos 100 years or more from now. I’ve envied people with large families, children and grandchildren, whose family legacy they will receive.
In my case, I feel like a failure, because I have nobody to inherit the photos - or even the book that my aunt wrote and the book I’m writing (which also contains photos). I thought it ironic I should now be the family historian when I have no children to pass things to. The only family left now are cousins, 2nd cousins, etc., and they are young - they care nothing of old photos or of our ancestry. Seemingly they care about nothing that is more than a few weeks old.
Yet, seeing this, it occurs to me that if I did have children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, they might have turned out the same: uninterested in anything beyond last month.
Perhaps, like the Pharaohs, I should bury these photos and writings in a pyramid in my back yard to be discovered far in the future. More realistically, I could upload them to something like Flickr where at least others could view them. But for how long? Perhaps the best is to create photo books.
So what will become of your photos, your work? Do you believe your family will cherish them and pass them on? Do you care?
For the past few months I’ve been scanning negatives from photos I made in the 1970’s and I’m seeing these photos for the very first time (back then I could afford only to develop my own negatives and print only perhaps 1% of my work). I’m adding notes and comments to these photos. I would like to think that someone would enjoy them and cherish them - not only the photos I’ve made, but also very old family photos that are from the 1890’s as well.
Perhaps you have relatives who will appreciate your collection of photos 100 years or more from now. I’ve envied people with large families, children and grandchildren, whose family legacy they will receive.
In my case, I feel like a failure, because I have nobody to inherit the photos - or even the book that my aunt wrote and the book I’m writing (which also contains photos). I thought it ironic I should now be the family historian when I have no children to pass things to. The only family left now are cousins, 2nd cousins, etc., and they are young - they care nothing of old photos or of our ancestry. Seemingly they care about nothing that is more than a few weeks old.
Yet, seeing this, it occurs to me that if I did have children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, they might have turned out the same: uninterested in anything beyond last month.
Perhaps, like the Pharaohs, I should bury these photos and writings in a pyramid in my back yard to be discovered far in the future. More realistically, I could upload them to something like Flickr where at least others could view them. But for how long? Perhaps the best is to create photo books.
So what will become of your photos, your work? Do you believe your family will cherish them and pass them on? Do you care?
