[Leica] Question for photojournalists concerning digital photos

[gwlists at aol.com (Gerry Walden)]

My concern is exactly what BD has expressed here, and is illustrated by 
Stevens approach.

When we turned the century in 2000 we looked back with pleasure at the 
images of 1900 and we could see the changes that have been made. Many of 
those images were just street scenes with no particular intrinsic value 
AT THE TIME, but they are now our visual heritage and as such have 
acquired the value of history.

Photographers (and I am afraid I am sometimes amongst them as, I would 
suggest, is just about every digital shooter) are now erasing images 
which have no value to them at the time, but which will in 100 years 
from now show the mundane that by then will have become interesting but 
will be lost for ever. I have folders full of negatives which show the 
last 40-odd years, and I have virtually never thrown a negative away 
because the good and bad images (as BD says) are mixed on the same film. 
But will I want to store thousands and thousands of digital images on 
ever-increasing CDs or hard disks and (even more controversially) will 
we even be able to access them? Probably not. So there person who said 
that the last century will be remembered as the most visually recorded 
was probably right.

Gerry



B. D. Colen wrote:

 > Steven -
 >
 > First off, any photographer is his or her own worst editor - so
 > throwing out
 > 90 percent of what you shot and only turning in 10 percent almost
 > guarantees
 > that there will be days when you will discard for all eternity the best
 > shots of the day - if not of your career.
 >
 > Second, had you shot that assignment on film, you would keep every frame,
 > you would not cut out 30 individual negs and throw the rest away. You can
 > easily burn CDs and stash them somewhere, if the paper isn't willing to
 > provide the necessary hard disk space.
 >
 > And 2000 assignments a year - you mean that you are shooting apx six
 > assignments a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks per year? Wow!
 >
 > Best
 >
 > B. D.

-- 
Gerry Walden
www.gwpics.com
www.digitalrailroad.net/gwpics
www.photographersdirect.com/gwpics
+44 23 8046 3076