Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/12/15

[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]

Subject: [Leica] Re: Photogs in a Digitally Abbreviated World
From: lowiemanuel at yahoo.ca (Emanuel Lowi)
Date: Wed Dec 15 10:21:25 2004

Dante Stella wrote:

> 
> Let me offer a different perspective.  Archival
> life does not matter 
> >> while you are alive, because you can always make
> more prints.  Or 
> >> scan negs or whatever.  Nor does it matter after
> you die.
> >>
> >> Let's start with the brutal truth.  No one will
> care about 99% of 
> >> your (anyone's) pictures when you are
> gone.<<<<<<<<
> >

I feel compelled to diagree. Anyone who has ever
visited the museum at the Auschwitz death camp outside
Oswiecim, Poland, will no doubt recall the massive
display of unsorted family snapshots retrieved from
the luggage of Jews who were soon murdered by the
Nazis. In a certain way, that collection of photos --
almost all of it depicting nameless people from
unknown origins -- is the most powerful testimony that
evil place makes. 

There is even a book of those photos that I feel is
worth looking at and thinking about.

I believe that a huge selection of photos of unnamed
victims is on display for a similar purpose in
Cambodia, as evidence of the Khmer Rouge's crimes.

Family photos may not be merely inconsequential
mementos for our own lifetimes. They can be the
historical evidence of ordinary lives lived. Depending
on what happens, they made provide the only proof that
a person -- however unidentifiable -- actually
existed, once memories and other records have failed .
For me, that's reason enough to cry out for archival
processes and to continue to reject the ephemeral
nature of this "digitally abbreviated world."

Emanuel Lowi
Montreal

______________________________________________________________________ 
Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca