How do you "keep" your memories

[JSER]

Have we all lost touch with the reasons behind the family photograph.

WAY back only the rich could afford a family portrait, they would commission a painter/artist to record the family, individual, pet or prize cow!, the ordinary person could never afford this, then photography came alon.
We entered the era of the studio photograph, sitting "pinned" in place whilst the s l o w medium took effect, later when GE Introduced the box brownie almost everyone who was waged could place their family on film and in an album for generations to come.

We complain about the degridation of DVD's, CD's, cards etc but I have negatives and prints I did in a darkroom as good today as they were 40+ years ago.

Ok, I don't take the lbums out often in fact last year twice, but I DID take them out, they include items with photographs such as bus/railway tickets where my young sons had a day out, zoo passes and hospital ID bracelets with photos of my sons in hospital, all memories to me.

One day the only thing we will all have to look forweard to are memories, so, what of others, ipadphones will come and go, dvdcds will crack and perish, do you have albums and still keep/update/add to that you can look at today or back on.

 

[KmH]

No doubt, digital is turning out to be fairly poor from an archival prespective.

How will those making digital images of their children today, preserve/archive them so they can be looked at even just 20 years from now?

I have family photographs that are over 100 years old. Some of those old photos were studio photos and some were family gathering snapshots.

The Brownie was introduced in February of 1900, and cost $1.

 

[DiskoJoe]

You can still print them and scrapbook. Personally I like to make photo albums online with blurb or shutterfly. A lot cooler then the ones my parents had with actual pictures between plastic.

 

[manaheim]

I keep all the digital ones that are more critical on live spinning media and backed up on a regular basis.

It does make me absolutely nervous as hell, though.

 

[manaheim]

BTW, also speaking to the whole "album" thing... this is one place where I think digital totally trumps analog. My wife's computer screen saver is all of our pictures in a random rotation, and her machine is always situated in the house where it can be easily seen. We all get kinda stuck there just watching it flip the images around, and the kids love it.

Toss in that you can also view the albums from our Xbox (which is just streaming from my server in the basement - same place my wife is displaying them from). It really makes them so much more useful.

Take pictures one day, and the pictures are up for everyone to see the next. Very cool.

 

[TheFantasticG]

You can still print them and scrapbook. Personally I like to make photo albums online with blurb or shutterfly. A lot cooler then the ones my parents had with actual pictures between plastic.

I'm trying to get into that habit.

 

[bhop]

You can still print them and scrapbook. Personally I like to make photo albums online with blurb or shutterfly. A lot cooler then the ones my parents had with actual pictures between plastic.

I actually prefer actual pictures between plastic...

However, most of my photos end up on flickr, which I share with everyone and even look through my own photos myself often. Considering my family/friends are scattered throughout the world, it's much more convenient for sharing than if I only had my hard copy albums. I do make prints (photo printer) of the ones I really like and hang them on my walls.

 

[Compaq]

I've recently started building a negative bank of memories from my time studying Should last for quite some time.

 

[Josh66]

I still shoot film, so unless my house burns down or we get hit by a tornado, the negatives will still be around long after I'm dead. I have considered putting the older ones (that I'm not likely to need any time soon) in a safe deposit box or something... I still haven't done that, but it seems like a good idea.

I print a lot of pictures and put them in photo albums, on the wall, etc.

(I also make a sure to shoot film for 'special events', after losing too many digital photos...)

 

[Josh66]

However, most of my photos end up on flickr, which I share with everyone and even look through my own photos myself often. Considering my family/friends are scattered throughout the world, it's much more convenient for sharing than if I only had my hard copy albums. I do make prints (photo printer) of the ones I really like and hang them on my walls.

Much the same for me. I have photo albums, but most of my family never gets a chance to see them. They just check my Flickr stream every week or so. (That's also the reason I upload most stuff at full res (or whatever I have to resize to get it under 20MB) - if they want a print, they have a good file to work with. I realize that other people can download the full size photo too, but that's a risk I take...)

 

[KenC]

I print the ones I really like on matte paper on an Epson printer which uses pigment-based inks. I don't see why they wouldn't last as long as B&W prints.

 

[lauraxlovegood]

I have all the pictures I've ever taken on my computer still, which I kinda hate. I've been meaning to print most of them and putting them in a photo album, if not scrapbooking them. I've learned that I love to scrapbook and so I want to make scrapbooks with all the pictures on my computer...

 

[bratkinson]

For those with scrapbooks, I say 'well done'. Unfortunately, the prints and even negatives of "yesterday" degrade, fire/flood/tornado/lost in moving can all occur to them as well...or, as my parents found out 40 years ago, a german shepard puppy ate/chewed 4 of the 5 scrapbooks they had since they were married in 1940...and of us kids, as well. Today, us 3 kids have about 10-15 pix each of our childhoods. Nothing of our parents early years.

As for having pix spinning on one or more hard drives, even computers...all well and good. Having backups, even better. Having backups somewhere other than your house, even better in case of fire, tornado, etc. Here in Western Massachusetts, in 2011 we had tornadoes, microbursts, heavy snows that caused significant roof damage (and leaks), floods (Irene), and even a freak October snowstorm that wiped out power for over a week for some homes. In short, having memories somewhere off the property is a requirement...for all important computer data.

Just today, I scanned, photoshopped and printed some old family pix for a friend. The pix were mostly from the 60s ala Kodak Instamatic. The color shifts were easily corrected, and I managed to improve the focus, too. I even removed some pimples from some teenagers. Then I printed a set for each of the children, and a CD for each, as well. Everyone has their memories, in separate houses.