I just finished a blog about Carbonite and how great it works. That got me thinking about the restoration work I do (click here http://rltphotoartist.com/index_restorestuff.htm) and then about picture and movie preservation in the future--say the next 25-50 years.
People start looking for their baby pictures in their late 30's and early 40's. Right now, many of those pictures are stained and discolored black and whites or faded color pictures and slides. I can bring back most of that with my restoration work.
However, I think about these same people and what they are doing about preserving the pictures of their own kids right now. So many of my friends have digital cameras and keep all of their pictures of their children in their computer. In the 50's and onward, our parents didn't have any choice but to save fairly archival quality pictures and slides and movies on good paper and film. There is some fading, but usually there is enough for restorers to work with to produce a decent result.
What I am afraid of is what will be left for the babies and kids today if parents take pictures only with their digital cameras and don't back up those masterpieces to cd or quality prints using name brand inks and quality paper. Everyone is busy taking care of their kids--running them to day care, soccer, music lessons and all that. This is just not a priority for some people.
Furthermore, just think of the changes we have been through with computers and storage already (5.25 and 3.5 inch floppies, computers and laptops that die with pictures of the family on them and no way to retrieve the pictures, VHS tapes that fade away to nothing.) Data recovery on an average consumer hard disk drive is still hard to come by and the price is pretty steep in my opinion--unless you are the FBI. This next generation of kids won't have a faded photograph or slide to take to someone like me to be restored. They may not have anything at all to remember their childhood with if their parents don't take the time to back up their data on some type of backup besides the faithful family computer with an average life span of about 5 years.
It seems like my parents took a lot of pictures of my brother and me. But there are precious few left after numerous moves in an Air Force family. I treasure the ones I have and I am grateful to have them. But, my parents never thought about preservation and how important these pictures would be to us some day. This may be the last time you think about this for the precious few years that your children are adorable little ones. Make a decision to do something to preserve their pictures for them--whether it is a cd backup in your safe deposit box, a cd backup at a friend's house and one at your house or offsite digital storage of some type. It can be as easy as uploading your pictures to Target (http://www.target.com/) , Kodak (http://targetphoto.kodakgallery.com/Welcome.jsp) or Shutterfly (http://targetphoto.shutterfly.com/) and having them make the cd and pictures for you. Whether you have it done by me or someone else, time moves on and the next generation truly deserves to have those adorable pictures of them in embarrasing poses.
Who knew that one of the few best ones I have left is of me at 2 years old picking my nose? Thanks, Dad!
come visit my website at http://www.rltphotoartist.com/
http://www.carbonite.com/ backup storage for the lazy but well meaning type.
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