After death: What shall happen to our photos?

[Alan Edward Klein]

Overall, I agree - although the jury is out on this one, of course. So far, the memory of "the internet" has proven to be pretty ruthless much of the time.
An anecdote comes to mind - my wife is young enough to have grown up with mobile phones (well, so am I, at least to an extent...and insofar as I ever grew up of course), so she was texting her friends as a teenager. Fearing that she might at some point lose those glorious conversations, she has (I kid you not) transcribed those conversations in a diary on several occasions (again, I'm not making this up).

Maybe we could propose that people would draw a facsimile of the photos sent to them through WhatsApp etc.



Exactly. People often point out the fleeting nature of digital media, whilst ignoring or forgetting the fact that can be (and often are) also readily duplicated at effectively zero marginal cost.

Your wife's story reminds me of when my niece died on 9-11, her mom, my sister, had a message that she left recorded on my sister's internet answering machine. So I made an audio file for her that she requested. Unfortunately, my sister has passed away since then, but I still have a copy of it on my desktop.

 

[VinceInMT]

Some people just get rid of the old family albums. An acquaintance of mine searches these out and makes art out of those images.

 

[Pieter12]

Some people just get rid of the old family albums. An acquaintance of mine searches these out and makes art out of those images.

I find something ghoulish, akin to necrophilia, in digging up others' personal life mementos for one's art.

 

[VinceInMT]

I find something ghoulish, akin to necrophilia, in digging up others' personal life mementos for one's art.

Maybe. Her is her site: http://www.janedeschner.com/

 

[Steve Roberts]

We have no kids and I'm under no illusions that the kids of the distant relations of 'Er Indoors and I would have any interest whatsoever in my photographic output of several decades. Sadly, like that of so many others, most of the material will likely become landfill along with family photos going back over a century. The only redeeming thing is that my extensive library of a few thousand transparencies of local mining and industrial archaeology should hopefully be accepted by a local archive, as the Westcountry's mining heritage is very much to the fore (at the moment!) following the area's designation as a World Heritage Site. Also, I hope that perhaps some of the illustrated articles I've written and that have been published will live on after I've snuffed it in a library or at least in the publisher's archive.
Steve
PS - Just realised that the last sentence can be read so as to imply that I might die in a library! I suppose they are at least warm places to sit in now that the winter heating allowance is for the chop!

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Some people just get rid of the old family albums. An acquaintance of mine searches these out and makes art out of those images.

Does that violate copyrights?

 

[Pieter12]

Does that violate copyrights?

Probably not because it incorporates the photos in a new piece of art, effectively changing them.

 

[Prest_400]

Texting and social media are in the vapor and get lost. I'm referring to hard copies like framed photo prints, photo books, memory cards for playback, etc.

Overall, I agree - although the jury is out on this one, of course. So far, the memory of "the internet" has proven to be pretty ruthless much of the time.
An anecdote comes to mind - my wife is young enough to have grown up with mobile phones (well, so am I, at least to an extent...and insofar as I ever grew up of course), so she was texting her friends as a teenager. Fearing that she might at some point lose those glorious conversations, she has (I kid you not) transcribed those conversations in a diary on several occasions (again, I'm not making this up).

Maybe we could propose that people would draw a facsimile of the photos sent to them through WhatsApp etc.



Exactly. People often point out the fleeting nature of digital media, whilst ignoring or forgetting the fact that can be (and often are) also readily duplicated at effectively zero marginal cost.

I have been something of a nostalgia fuelled archivist in my earlier photo years. 2008-19 I was specially mindful of that even as a teenager up to my 20s. I think the influence is seeing my dad's slides and family archive of just shots that were taken and are in physical media. Also that photos had a lot of value and rarely taken with some older late relatives of which we have less than a handful photographs.
This still happens nowadays, ironically. Even if the medium might allow, people might not be taking the kind of pictures of long term sentimental value. I read an article of moms having a sentiment of sadness because they rely on selfies as husbands never take pictures with the phones. Who'd have said.

On to what Koraks mentions, I also backed up the text messages from eg. Whatsapp, which have a neat email txt function. It is funny to go through them 12 years later!

Being of a younger generation I don't think of my own demise, and unfortunately it would be a whole lineage as I am a single child. I hilariously remember our insurance agent offering me, when I was 19, a life insurance with an "Outstanding burial coverage". Nope.

As a film shooter, a lot of the (sometimes unfortunate) filtering happens before the camera. I have been very selective with shooting and later on there are some regrets of shots that would have been meaningful but were not taken.

 

[Pieter12]

One thing that seems to be overlooked is that with today’s smartphones and their digital camera predecessors, many more family, event and vacation photos are being taken. Leading to a much richer archive of the people and times than in the purely film days.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Probably not because it incorporates the photos in a new piece of art, effectively changing them.

AI companies are being sued for just that issue.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

One thing that seems to be overlooked is that with today’s smartphones and their digital camera predecessors, many more family, event and vacation photos are being taken. Leading to a much richer archive of the people and times than in the purely film days.

But are they being saved someplace retrievable or permeant or just left in the cellphones?

 

[Pieter12]

Someone let Richard Prince know that. He doesn’t even modify others’ photos, just the context.

But are they being saved someplace retrievable or permeant or just left in the cellphones?

Most smartphones back up to the cloud or another computer.

 

[Philippe-Georges]

Someone let Richard Prince know that. He doesn’t even modify others’ photos, just the context.


Most smartphones back up to the cloud or another computer.

Provided the internet works, there is a connection, the smartphone's battery is charged, no power failure and you did not forgot to pay the provider's bill...

 

[koraks]

Provided the internet works, there is a connection, the smartphone's battery is charged, no power failure and you did not forgot to pay the provider's bill...

All factors that the vast majority of smartphone users manage to get right pretty much all of the time. And even if not, they're easily fixed:

• the internet works - well, if it doesn't for a moment, odds are that in an hour or so it will, as you walk/drive back into the service area of your nearest network, the momentary hiccup on the ISP's side is fixed, etc.
• there is a connection - see above; how many people do you reckon live their lives outside reach of any phone connectivity? Sure, quite a few, but most of the population in a position to have (afford) a smartphone in the first place, find themselves within a network service area. It's the business model of phone providers to sell connections, so they make damn sure that all population centers are serviced.
• the smartphone's battery is charged - even if it runs down, it can be recharged from a power bank or a wall outlet as soon as the phone is close to one. Even in rural areas without reliable power infrastructure in developing nations phone charging is a wide-spread service.
• you did not forgot to pay the provider's bill - oh, they'll remind you, don't worry about that one.

We could list similar factors for physical prints or negatives, like "provided the house doesn't burn down every time you file a sheet of negatives etc."

There appears to be a tendency to spread FUD when it comes to approaches people personally don't prefer. If you don't like digital technology and automatic backups/replication, that's fine. But it's no reason to discredit it based on far-fetched arguments that have little credibility from a practical viewpoint.
The real problem here is not the issues you associate with technology, but your personal attitude towards it. Apparently you have a dislike or distrust of smartphones, cloud storage etc. That's fine, but shall we just call it for what it is? You don't like it, that's all.

 

[Don_ih]

One thing that seems to be overlooked is that with today’s smartphones and their digital camera predecessors, many more family, event and vacation photos are being taken. Leading to a much richer archive of the people and times than in the purely film days.

Yes, and when's the last time you sat down and leisurely looked through 250000 photos? Someone else's photos, that is.

Most people here have rich archives that no one will want in any form - that seems to be what most people here think of their own photos.

Provided the internet works, there is a connection, the smartphone's battery is charged, no power failure and you did not forgot to pay the provider's bill...

Those aren't the problem with purely digital storage of photos (or documents, for that matter). In the event of your death, will anyone else have access to these things or know where they are or even that they exist? A laptop doesn't look like a photo album. No one wants half a million photos - or to search through the debris of selfies, food photos, work-related photos, etc., to find something "meaningful".

However, I think the tendency, for more and more people, is to delete unwanted photos fairly quickly. Are people really ending up with "richer" archives or is it simply more photos - or perhaps only photos that are "nice"?

 

[koraks]

However, I think the tendency, for more and more people, is to delete unwanted photos fairly quickly

Maybe; I see my wife do it at least, and since she's just more modern in these things, you could well be right. On the other hand, people (including me) used to be quite lazy and would rather upgrade their phone to a model with more memory so it could hold all those photos. I'm not sure if that has been changing already. Moore's Law is a great enabler of our own lack of discipline.

Btw, as said before, what happens after my own passing is not something that concerns me. On the other hand, the passing of others, is. Last year, my cat died (his sister died the year before). In the inevitable phase of mourning and nostalgia, I found myself going through all my phone snapshots to find some nice ones. Fortunately, I found a few (with a fairly heavy bias to his younger years; kittens seem to evoke the desire to press the button - or perhaps pull the trigger if you're more of a dog person). I selected one and printed it; it makes a rather nice 9x6" memento on a bookshelf in one of the upstairs rooms. I'm glad I made those snapshots, and that I didn't cull them. Of course, to later generations, in the unlikely event they ever stumble upon it, it's just one of the bazillion pics of a tabby.

 

[guangong]

Back to the topic of thread title. I believe it was Picasso who said that if there were no wars, fires, or other disasters that destroyed art of the past, that the clutter of past art would leave no room for contemporary art. So if, upon your demise, all your photos are trashed, think of it as a positive contribution to the creation of future photographs.

 

[VinceInMT]

…There appears to be a tendency to spread FUD when it comes to approaches people personally don't prefer….

^^^THIS^^^

Tell me about it! I live in Montana and recently bought a Tesla Model Y. As if being from California and a long time vegetarian hadn’t already made me a target. ;-)

But back to a photography-related example, on another social media platform there is a darkroom forum that I find quite worthwhile, seeing work others do as well as how and where they do it. Posting photos of darkroom space (like we do here) I find helpful to see how others have solved the same issues we all deal with in terms of space, equipment, workflow, especially when alternative processes are involved. I posted a couple updated photos of mine now that I have a second enlarger in there and got some positive feedback but, as is always the case, one guy (I assume it was a guy) let me know things he didn’t approve of. For example, I have a bare concrete floor and he said I should have anti-fatigue mats. Well, I find that those things can be tripping hazards in a dark space and prefer to wear an older pair of my Hoka running shoes which provide LOTS of cushioning. Someone asked why I have a microwave and I mentioned that it was an extra unit we had and it is handy to heat up my developer in the winter as my darkroom is unheated and stays about 58°F when it’s -20F in the dead of winter. Yes, I use a space heater to take the chill off but I’m not going to wait for that to heat up the liquids. I also mentioned that I saw a documentary on Ansel Adams years ago and he showed how he dries his test strips in a microwave. This guy went off on how a hair dryer is a much better method. This type of feedback is just the way of the world today.

 

[Mike Lopez]

^^^THIS^^^

Tell me about it! I live in Montana and recently bought a Tesla Model Y. As if being from California and a long time vegetarian hadn’t already made me a target. ;-)

But back to a photography-related example, on another social media platform there is a darkroom forum that I find quite worthwhile, seeing work others do as well as how and where they do it. Posting photos of darkroom space (like we do here) I find helpful to see how others have solved the same issues we all deal with in terms of space, equipment, workflow, especially when alternative processes are involved. I posted a couple updated photos of mine now that I have a second enlarger in there and got some positive feedback but, as is always the case, one guy (I assume it was a guy) let me know things he didn’t approve of. For example, I have a bare concrete floor and he said I should have anti-fatigue mats. Well, I find that those things can be tripping hazards in a dark space and prefer to wear an older pair of my Hoka running shoes which provide LOTS of cushioning. Someone asked why I have a microwave and I mentioned that it was an extra unit we had and it is handy to heat up my developer in the winter as my darkroom is unheated and stays about 58°F when it’s -20F in the dead of winter. Yes, I use a space heater to take the chill off but I’m not going to wait for that to heat up the liquids. I also mentioned that I saw a documentary on Ansel Adams years ago and he showed how he dries his test strips in a microwave. This guy went off on how a hair dryer is a much better method. This type of feedback is just the way of the world today.

Vince, you clearly have no idea what you’re doing in your darkroom. You’re wearing Hokas for that? I love the cushioning in a Hoka as much as the next guy, but serious darkroom practitioners know that the Alphafly 3 is what you should be wearing for that kind of stuff. Sheesh!

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Someone let Richard Prince know that. He doesn’t even modify others’ photos, just the context.


Most smartphones back up to the cloud or another computer.

I doubt if most people bother with that. In any case, there are limits to cloud memory and computer backup is not necessarily automatic and there are limits there as well. One day you wake up and you wonder what happened to all those pictures you shot of your children when they were children.

 

[VinceInMT]

Vince, you clearly have no idea what you’re doing in your darkroom. You’re wearing Hokas for that? I love the cushioning in a Hoka as much as the next guy, but serious darkroom practitioners know that the Alphafly 3 is what you should be wearing for that kind of stuff. Sheesh!

The Alphafly was so tall it made my ears pop.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Back to the topic of thread title. I believe it was Picasso who said that if there were no wars, fires, or other disasters that destroyed art of the past, that the clutter of past art would leave no room for contemporary art. So if, upon your demise, all your photos are trashed, think of it as a positive contribution to the creation of future photographs.

I discovered a related thing as I:m getting older (I'm 79). And that is our own lives are cluttered with garbage that we drag along with us through our lives. We;re afraid to let go of them as if they're our right arms even though they have no real importance except in our ego-filled minds. So we create meaningless backups and storage of thousands of photos, most which are copies of copies of copies or have so little impact that even we don't bother to look at them once filed. But we continue to store them and back them up just in case someone a hundred years from now will really care. Dumping them clears the mind although I admit, mine are still in there somewheres.

That's why I suggest to people to make prints now , frame them and give them to family while you're alive to enjoy in the giving and watch their enjoyment when they receive them and hopefully display them in their homes. Especially family pictures which are the ones most people want to see anyway. Why wait? We'll see nothing after we're gone.

 

[VinceInMT]

I doubt if most people bother with that. In any case, there are limits to cloud memory and computer backup is not necessarily automatic and there are limits there as well. One day you wake up and you wonder what happened to all those pictures you shot of your children when they were children.

I don’t know about limits to the cloud AFAIK mine is unlimited as my son works for the company that provides the service.

More interesting on this thread topic is the issue of “who are those people in those images?”

I recently spent time with my mother who is 90 and she pulled out a box of old photos that she had removed from the family albums before she threw away the albums themselves in her big downsizing project. Many of the images were familiar but many of them seemed new to me and I had to ask her who’s that, where was this, etc. She has annotated many of them on the back and plans to do the rest. During this I realized that I have very limited knowledge of my family tree other than my parents and grandparents. I’m not familiar with my grandparent’s siblings not to mention all the cousins or where anyone was from. I am mildly interested but have talked to my kids and they have zero interest. Perhaps its because when they were very young (1 and 4) we moved 1300 miles away from family and they were raised with only the occasional family contacts.

 

[VinceInMT]

…We;re afraid to let go of them as if they're our right arms even though they have no real importance except in our ego-filled minds.…

Well, it depends. I read a lot and one of my favorite genres are memoirs so I decided that I would write my own. I don’t intend to have it published but it’s been a great exercise in writing, not to mention remembering. All those old photos and the other junk I’ve accumulated have helped to tweak the memory and create the stories I write about. In one box of junk I found a wooden nickel from a bar in Spokane, Washington. Wow, did that ever key a memory about a time I spent there on a long motorcycle trip with others. I had remembered the trip and wrote about it but had forgotten this part, serendipity in it, and now it all came back and I am able to include a photo of the nickel in my memoir.

This all might be valuable if we find ourselves in memory care someday.

 

[Pieter12]

Most cloud services will give you a warning when you approach your limit, usually offering you the option to increase the size of your storage. And some have closed down, but once again, letting you know so you can download your data. The box of photos in your closet or attic won't let you know about the photos fading or getting moldy or the insects or rodents eating away at them.