I spent the past day going through some images I took on on a recent camping trip . For me , "some images" generally means thousands and this was no exception. I took many many images and of course then I needed to transfer them to storage and next will be the editing and eventually I will post a bunch on my flickr page and post a few here. Then what?
In the olden days which were really not that long ago, we used film and slides as the primary method, printed copies were the secondary method. Both of these, if stored properly really can last decades into centuries. Everyone printed their images on paper and though many found their way to shoe boxes under beds or in attics, many were lovingly placed in albums. Along came digital and the film and slide era faded, now we had digital images on cameras, phones, and computers. Printed images were still made but over time the use of the printed images faded..far easier and cheaper to post images, or text and share images online. Photography which was the art of capturing an image and saving it, became something more akin to sharing a moment and forgetting it, after all if you ever did want to print and save that image, you have the Digital file right?
Digital files make things so much easier. Images can be viewed on the capture device ( phone,camera, tablet etc), and instantly sent to friends and family or posted. And these images can be stored indefinitely right? WRONG!! Digital images don't last forever it turns out. The image itself is just data and 0 and 1's technically but the media they are stored on does degrade. For instance,conventional hard drives average about 5 years, SSD drives though having no moving parts probably average about 10 years, providing both these drive types are good quality. What about flash drives, sd cards etc? probably also about 5 years or less. Data should not be stored on flash drives for archival purposes. Photo hosting sites were a great option for a while but not a guarantee, turns out they can go belly up( I had it happen when digital first came out) or their unlimited free accounts that you stored all your photos on suddenly costed money to use and keep your pics (flickr)
No worries, you can use cloud storage, There is a huge push for that, to the point that phone makers no longer put micro Sd card slots on newer phones, they say its safer and easier to use ( and often pay for) their storage. Cloud storage is the golden grail for photo storage, just sync to the service and upload to that service seemlessly, and of course pay for it. Congratulations, you are hooked and though your images may be safe are they really? According to most of what I have read. cloud storage is pretty safe.
For Example see this link... https://www.tomsguide.com/features/i...-and-heres-why. I really am not trusting of technology, as unfortunately where ever there is technology, someone will find a way to hack it. I really don't like the idea that there is a connection to my devices with some other businesses cloud servers. The potential is there for a hacker to use that connection. If banks and credit card companies can't keep your data safe, a cloud server will? Heres a case illustrating a potential problem with cloud servers...https://arstechnica.com/security/202...-bmc-firmware/
There is one aspect that I like about cloud servers, Redundancy, These servers supposedly back up multiple copies of data at multiple locations. This is key to data preservation as it safeguards against lost data. If one server site is destroyed, the others have the data. Redundancy with Digital images is also very important. If you really want to save that image of your child's birth, or graduation or that once in life trip. you need to redundantly back it up. Print it, Store it not just on your phone or computer., store it on a portable drive or two and check those drives yearly for corruption. DO NOT STORE IT ON SD CARDS. If you are blessed with an older computer with a CDR or DVDR drive, burn a copy to it. Online storage and hosting sites can be part of the redundancy plan. I am particularly fond of and use Flickr https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/flickr-review . But I do not trust Flickr as a sole method as they are vague on sharing tech details.
There is one other problem with digital images. They also tend to get lost. .. think about how many images you took the last 5 years..can you easily find one particular image taken 3 years ago..For most, not likely. You really want to come up with a file system that labels images so you can actually find them.
Thats a whole lot of musings for a early morning but thought I would share them. I would have posted this in the photo section but I wanted to put in in my blog because I think this is also an issue within our hobby. Hand in Hand with the Digital image revolution came social media. Social media was to a large degree driven by images and still is. The problem is the data storage policies of each of the social media sites vary greatly, so photos posted may be fleeting when posted there, or they may unsearchable if the site requires log in. I think for us in the hobby it can take away from actually documenting strains and information for the long term. I can't help but feel that by using digital images for all their wonders and joys as we do that we may be short changing future generations. Of course there is the flip side that the ease and use of digital images now is beneficial enough to negate the negative aspects. Its also possible that we have gotten to the point where we are so focused on the present , that the past matters less than it did.
What do you think? and what do you do with your images?
al
