Toss my negatives?

When my brother and I left for military service, my mom threw out every script for the original Star Trek TV series (William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, etc.). Except she didn't ask.

I didn't find out they were missing until four years later.
 
bmattock said:
Regarding the inferiority of digital storage, the unavoidable EMP, and the usual Luddite claptrap: wrong.

However, yes, keep the negatives. A digital scan of the negative is always inferior to the original, so keep the original.
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To amplify:

Never mind EMPs: homes catch fire, or collapse, or are burgled. Hard disks fry. Some optical media is less "archival" than others. Badly-processed/stored film can disintegrate/fade. Ultimately, you can't rely implicitly on anything. If you care enough, you'll take of your originals and copies.

- Scan film. Store negs safely.

- Back up your storage hard drive. (This is an ever bigger deal if you're shooting digital.)

- If you're using optical media as well (not a bad secondary backup, although if you're talking "lotsa gigs", you might be better off getting a second HD to back-up the back-up), don't just grab the cheapest stuff on sale at Staples. My choice has been Verbatim DataLifePlus CD-/DVD-R media, and I haven't had a dud with these yet.

- If any of your hard drives is more than three years old and been in more-or-less constant use, consider replacing it. Like us, the things do have a finite lifespan, and can be just as unpredictable in terms of when The End finally arrives. Of course, if you're a particularly prolific photographer, you'll likely fill that drive before then, and be forced to buy a new (bigger) one.

When someone says "Why don't you ditch all those silly negs!", don't get mad. Just tell them "They're important, and you're the one who's silly!" Then buy them a really good cupcake.


- Barrett
 
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I have every negative (and chrome) from every roll of film I have ever shot. Ever. Starting with my first roll in 1984. Sleeved, bound and in chronological order.

When I got married, my wife had most of her prints thrown into a large tupperware storage container. No method or order, just thrown in all together. Many were torn and discolored. She asked if I could scan some and make some nice prints like I do with my pictures. I asked her for the negatives and she told me that she "always threw those away."

I understand where you are coming from.
 
When some new lady comes into my life suggesting that I get rid of my negative files I show her some elderly photos from the 60's and 70's and explain how much money they brought me decades later. Some Googling picture researcher ran into some of my photos on my blog or elsewhere, wanted to know what else I had from that shoot or of that person. Often I'm the ONLY one who still has it. Even newspapers "purge" their old stuff.

I the last couple of years I've sold rights to pictures of Miccosukee and Seminole Indians from the 1970's when they were just moving out of the Everglades onto reservations. An art dealer in Chicago contacted me about some paintings that appeared in one of my photo. Now the deceased artist's widow, living in Sweden, has prints of her, her husband, and their toddler son. The boy is now in his forties. I found out that those paintigs are now worth thousands. I sold some prints of the Grateful Dead TO the Grateful Dead, that I'd shot maybe 25 years earlier. I just posted some photos on my blog of Edward Muskie during his presidential campaign in 1972. Those archives are like money in the bank. I don't throw away money.
 
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How much space would you save? Though I just located some negatives I had been looking for, there are some still "at large".

Does your local bank have safety deposit boxes?

My Uncle Senya, (SEMO) retired in Mexico, he and his wife carefully cataloged 40 years of negatives, which are now scanned and stored at a museum, a book was recently published of his work, 25 years after he died.

And, I know many wives who are happy to see their spouses fondling Leicas, rather than all the other "worse" habits men are known to have. ;-) How many Pivos does an M9 cost?

Am thinking Letterman's wife wishes he was in to cameras.. ;-)

I guess you might store them in the studio. ;-)

As to the biology analogies, evolution has little use for any of us after we pass our DNA along. ;-)

Regards, John
 
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The reason why I don't throw out my negatives is because:

1) My scanning techniques or equipment may get better in the future and I may want to go back and re-scan a negative a particularly liked (or had trouble with before)

2) I don't scan the whole roll after development. I pick and choose frames. There might be a chance I decide to go back and scan another frame for whatever reason.
 
Our family had negatives stored away in albums or negative holders. Growing up I always knew that one day I would be able to use technology to bring back pictures of the good 'ol days. Now that I've grown up and sparked an interest in film photography. I finally bought a film scanner and went looking for those negatives. Found out that my mom had them thrown away days prior =/. *SIGH...*
 
A few years ago, I ask the local camera store owner whether he knew of a camera manufacturer that might made a "backup camera", and if it was reasonably priced I would buy one. A "backup camera" in this sense would simply be the body of a basic camera without a shutter. Instead of a lens, the lens mount would take on an electronic module connected to the computer that would project an image from a digital file stored in the computer. Exposure would be controlled by softwar from the computer using an electronic on/off switch, so no shutter is needed. In that way, one would be able to use film as the backup medium for digital images that need to be achieved. And of course his answer was---good idea, but there wouldn't be enough people who would understand that to buy such a camera, so none would be made by any manufacturer.
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That would be a film recorder;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_recorder
Not really viable as a back-up solution.

I once came home from work to find my (now ex-) girlfriend conducting an experiment where she was trying to simulate a landslide in the living room. This involved pouring a sludge (sand and water) down a sloping board. To prop up the board she was using the boxes with my entire slide archive! She got upset when I insisted on 'destroying' her model. The idea that 'archive' and 'mud' don't mix well didn't get much traction.
 
You're right! It was Edmund!

I suppose that if they were bought at a pharmacy they'd be "pharmaceuticals" but all I remember is that there were small bowls of white powder on various tables in the room. I have no idea where the stuff came from.

Hey, it's been a fun life!
 
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