Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/12/15
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]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