Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/04/27
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]I've been thinking a lot about digital and film since returning from a trip a week ago. I'm not anti-digital, in fact I have a digital set-up at home including "archival" inks for black and white printing, but this experience hit home and I thought I'd share. (Plus, after searching this city high and low for some Microdol-X, I find out Kodak discontinued it a few months ago and I'm really pissed off.) About a week ago I returned from visiting my Grandmother, who is 91 years old and my last remaining grandparent. Her time on this earth is numbered, so it was important to take the time to visit with her. The one thing she wanted to do the most was to visit the "old house" - the original home where she lived with my grandfather (who died in 1996) prior to moving into a seniors apartment a decade ago. So we went. The house is slowly falling apart - not surprising that it's gone through 10 winters of -30c and 10 summers of +30c all boarded up. No heat, no running water, no humidity control, nada. The paint is peeling off the walls, mould and mildew is rampant, the linoleum is cracking and pealing. You get the picture. What I didn't expect to find however, was the boxes of old photographs. 4 large boxes FULL of old pictures. And I mean old. The earliest one is dated 1903, but there are others that are, by estimation and judging by the ages of the people, at least circa 1890's. These are pictures of not only my father and grandfather and my great-grandfather, but my great-great-grandfather. Some were formal portraits, but the majority were informal shots. Dogs, men working teams of horses, my grandfather and great-grandfather harvesting wheat. My great uncle returning by ship from WW1. I was astounded and asked my grandmother why on earth they would have left these photos to rot. Her reply was that the "important" ones were in albums. Which is true, to a point. All the formal pictures are tucked away in albums, while the majority of the informal/candid ones were left behind, without a thought to how important they actually are. The pictures are, for the most part, in rough shape. Some are faded simply because they are over 100 years old, others have mildew damage - none are pristine, but all are still viewable. Where am I going with this ? Are your great-great grandchildren going to be holding one of your digital inkjet prints 100 years from now just because Epson or someone like Henry Wilhelm says you should experience no significant fading under proper storage conditions ? Do you expect that electronic manufacturers will continue to build technology to support the CD and DVD formats 50 years from now, or are they going to be the technological equivalent of the 8 track tape, 45 RPM disk or wax cylinder recording ? Digital may be more efficient = more images. I'm thinking now that digital = the potential for more images lost. My thoughts. I guess only time will tell. William - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html