Throwback From The Past

[smoke665]

Came up in a social media feed today, and remains one of my all time favorites. This is an 11x14 photo from back in the days when I shot film and had a great darkroom. The print is over 40 years old and despite no special treatment has survived fairly well, with only a few spots here and there. I scanned it five years ago after finding it in a drawer full of old photos. The scan doesn't really do it justice as in the original the eyes are still tack sharp, and you can clearly see the reflection of yours truly, as I snapped this ambient light only photo.
View attachment 175615

 

[Dean_Gretsch]

Definitely a keeper!

 

[Jeff15]

Nice one........

 

[smoke665]

Definitely a keeper!

Having lived in both film and digital, I get why the die hard film people hang on. There is a quality that sets it apart from digital, and I have to wonder if I'll even be able to access the thousands of digital files I now have 40 years from now.

 

[tirediron]

Lovely image, and I have to admit, that same thought has bothered me for a long time... I have thousands of negatives and prints from my film days and other than a few prints which suffered a fixer 'malfunction', they're all in great shape... The images I'm creating now? Hmmm.... don't really have that warm & fuzzy feeling about their longevity!

 

[smoke665]

@tirediron I know it's the "unknown" factor that bothers me. With film there was already a history. At the time this was taken there was already years of physical proof you could hold in your hand of the longevity. Now all you have is the assumption that the digital concoction of 1s & 0s will give up an image at some point in the future.

Just in my lifetime the technology has changed tremendously with the media. From tape, to floppy disk, CD, DVD etc. some of which are no longer accessible with today's technology.

 

[Soocom1]

@tirediron I know it's the "unknown" factor that bothers me. With film there was already a history. At the time this was taken there was already years of physical proof you could hold in your hand of the longevity. Now all you have is the assumption that the digital concoction of 1s & 0s will give up an image at some point in the future.

Just in my lifetime the technology has changed tremendously with the media. From tape, to floppy disk, CD, DVD etc. some of which are no longer accessible with today's technology.

There was a major article on that issue about 15 years ago. The article went into detail on how digital records in of themselves as long as kept safe are almost infinite. The problem is the media. The CD's of the past and the plastic that the foil was put on degrade over time and the loss of the that information degrades images quickly. Dont even start on magnetic tape.
Same is true with flash drives, HDD etc. The electronics over time break down and the loss is incalculable.
But even hard copies are subject to loss.

Until they can figure a way to make photographic stone, I think our memories will last only a bit longer than us.

 

[smoke665]

The problem is the media.

Not just the media but the technology. Do you still have a tape reader, what about a 5.25 floppy, or a 3.5. It's only a matter of time before CDs and DVDs become obsolete as will the hardware that supports them. As the digital world moves into the realm of 3D, holograms and virtual reality even the file formats will become obsolete. A print on paper might age or degrade over time but as long as we have eyes to see it will be there.

Now lest you think I'm tied to the past I assure you I'm not. One of the downsides to prints are the boxes I have in storage from years ago, many of which I have no clue as to who they are and those who might be able to tell me are long gone. By the time you get to 2nd and third generations the images of the past become less important. My kids, will likely unceremoniously dump those boxes I've stored from my parents and grandparents. Truth be known I probably should have already done it.

 

[Soocom1]

Makes me wonder what Julius would have said if he could see the condition of his statue today.

Or how Cleopatra or Nefriteri would have reacted to them.

Its simply a matter of the fact that the media created is temporary as is everything else int he world.

It makes my heart ache thinking of folks who loose their memories in floods, fires, earthquakes, etc.

 

[Fred von den Berg]

Lovely shot. I'm thinking that 40 years from now it won't matter to me whether or not my digital files can be accessed, but leaving them to posterity has its problems. Photos taken by my dad are in a box at my mum's house and we like to look through them when we visit. How my daughter will be able to browse my pics when I'm in my box is unsure.

 

[vintagesnaps]

No sh%&# Jack.

B&W film and photographs can last apparently indefinitely.

I've been going thru old family photos as my parents are downsizing to retirement community life, and where these pictures have been I don't know. Some are in a box and one for example of my grandma is a flapper. It's the cutest thing and a tiny photo that's been in an itty bitty cardboard folder for who knows how long... I plan to scan it and see if I can get a 4x6" enlargement. It's in good shape except for a little of that almost shiny look depending on turning it in the light to see it (the effects of decades in cardboard). I plan to get them in a scrapbook with photo corners (all acid free) and store the photos and cardboard folders separate I think. That photo is at least 90 years old.

And yeah, people shoot photos to the point they seem to have a ridiculous amount to store and it seems beyond impractical to manage. I wish peeps would slow down! lol I do have a lot of photo albums but maybe it's good I at least did that, although I still have a few smaller storage boxes of 4x6's.

 

[vintagesnaps]

And Smoke, that's a really nice photo, beautifully done with a lovely range of black, white, and grays. I wondered if you scanned at a higher res setting? I find that helps.

 

[smoke665]

Photos taken by my dad are in a box at my mum's house and we like to look through them when we visit

I think people by and large prefer to view prints rather than digital images on a screen. However by the time you print and frame an image you can tie up some serious money. Last year I started doing photo yearbooks of family, as coffee table books. For less then the cost of a framed 11x14, I can present a years worth of photos. Family loves them

 

[smoke665]

And Smoke, that's a really nice photo, beautifully done with a lovely range of black, white, and grays. I wondered if you scanned at a higher res setting? I find that helps.

Higher resolution would help some I'm sure. Not having it hung on the wall of my office for so many years in a nonarchival manner would have really helped as would better storage methods. LOL

 

[smoke665]

I've been going thru old family photos as my parents are downsizing to retirement community life, a

A bit of advice. On the photos you save be sure to notate on the backs who's in the photo. Once parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles are gone so is the ability to identify. Don't be afraid to cull you don't need a gazillion pictures of Mount So&So, or Aunt Flo with half her head cropped off.

A shoe box full of documented good photos is far better then a pike of junk in a trunk!