Are 99.9% of Your Photographs Just Not Important Enough To Save?

If this was your entire photo collection sitting in this trash can in the photo above, would this make you …

… actually, feel relief … or utter panic?

What if I added to this scenario? What if, to the best of your knowledge, all your photos sitting in the trash were already scanned and safely backed up on a couple of your hard drives?

Do you now feel relieved … or still utterly panicked?

From everyone I have talked to about this scenario, it seems safe for me to say that I believe the world is somewhat divided on whether it's actually okay to throw away your prints and slides once they have been scanned and digitally preserved.

And for some, hopefully not too many, I am sure they would say it's okay to throw away many if not most, photos before they were scanned and preserved.

Yes. You heard me.

Let's Consider My Aunt's Conflict

Not too long ago, I finished up a nice video review of the Logan Slide File 35mm slide box. It's an archival-quality metal box that is safe to store your slides in.

It's the first video I am not only in, but my Dad's making his “SYEL” screen debut as well.

For this reason, I thought I would email my Aunt Karen a link for the video.

Even though my Uncle has shot thousands of slides through the years and is in the process of scanning them, I really didn't think she would be interested in the subject of the video. I just thought she would enjoy seeing a video of her brother and me working on a family photo project together.

About a day or so passed when I got an email back from her. She was very complimentary of my work, as you would expect your delightful Aunt to be. (Thanks, Aunt Karen!)

But she added something at the end of her comment that I totally wasn't expecting.

We thought your video was very good. But I have to ask WHY we are storing all the slides???? I thought we were scanning them so we could get rid of some more STUFF! 

Well, first, I wrote her back and apologized. I told her my intent wasn't to push any kind of “metal archival box” agenda on her. And she told me later she didn't think I was.

Secondly, I must admit, that's a pretty logical and fair question she asked!

I mean, why should the average person go through this huge job or expense of scanning all their photos just to have a second set of them?

The Big Reply

So, I knew I had to write my Aunt back. I couldn't leave a monstrosity of a question like this hanging out there — especially when she used like 4 question marks in one sentence.

But, it's funny to me that I had to think about it for a day or two before I could even come up with a complete and possibly persuasive enough answer for her.

“Why should you keep your original prints and negatives?” I kept asking myself.

Suppose the scans aren't of high enough quality to warrant being able to toss the originals. What is the point of scanning them besides sharing a few with friends and family on social networking sites and email?

I became agitated with myself. 

“Shouldn't I just know this off the top of my head!?” I mean, I do have this little scanning website here with my name on it somewhere.

I kept thinking, “Why isn't it just a known belief for people that you keep your originals — I mean, they are … they're at least sentimental, right? Isn't everyone sentimental????”

Disclaimer: I think we maybe should just go ahead and get this out of the way. If you haven't guessed it already from reading this website, I'm on the side of the fence that can't help but practically gasp when I hear someone talk about throwing their original photos away. Yeah, even the “not so focused” and “that's my Mom's thumb in the shot” ones.

Over the last several years, I've now heard the logic from enough people from the “other side”  that I guess I should at least begin to recognize this as a respectable option.

That being said out loud, I still felt I should send my Aunt Karen any non-sentimental logical reasoning that would at least explain why I personally would never want to toss out my family's original photos.

I'm sure over time, the list will grow longer. But that week — silly, stupid, genius, or pathetic — here's what I came up with.

But Still — Seriously, What's the Point of Scanning Then!?

With all this said, I know they do take up space!

For most of our lives, we're preoccupied with acquiring things, and then we spend the last part of our lives giving away these things.

And I feel like I am already ahead of schedule. I am middle-aged (I had to cough that one up) and already starting to really reduce the number of things my wife and I have in our house. I am putting work into carefully consolidating as little as possible.

But for me, personally, these analog “memories” will probably be the last thing I will pitch — and that will probably be like the ol' saying, “over my dead body!” Someone can bury me literally under my collection. It can be grass, then dirt, then my collection, and then me.

Am I really just being overly sentimental about a bunch of old paper and chemicals?

Shortly thereafter, I ran across a couple of forum comments on photo.net that smacked me right in the face with this very question.

They were just a couple of thoughts out of many, buried in a discussion about 35mm slides.

Sorry to tell you guys, but 99.9% of your pictures just aren't that important. If you don't throw them out before you die, your wife's next husband will. Including the so-called keepers.

~ Alan Klein

I agree with Alan. Our slides are not important to anyone really other than to ourselves and I think it is a fantasy to assume they need to be treasured like works of art.

~ Robin Smith

I guess it's possible Alan and Robin wrote these words with little thought. They could have been a knee-jerk reaction typed out on their smartphones while they were waiting for their movie to start in a theater. They were just trying to be funny — right?

Or, they could have taken their time and typed out their true and sobering belief in the matter after months of deep-hearted analysis.

Either way, what they said is still truly scary to me.

Are we really lying to ourselves if we think our print and 35mm slide collections will be appreciated generations from now?

When my will is read aloud in front of my surviving family (or is that only done by rich people in the movies?), will any one of my nieces and nephews be upset if I choose them to take over as caretaker of my treasured old photo collection?

If their truth be told, would everyone prefer to be awarded my almost valueless Groo the Wanderer childhood comic book collection instead?

Maybe, sadly, it's true.

On the surface, it appears that our little “future generations” are being groomed to appreciate only digital images — consumed quickly and clicked out of view.

“Oh look, Uncle Curtis — there's a cat doing something funny in this ‘pitcher' !”

“Oh yes. Yeah, that's cute.”

[click]

[sigh]

So Analog Is Done Then?

I certainly wouldn't say it's done. I'm sure this is a conversation that will continue on for years to come.

But in the meantime, here's something truly interesting I remember stumbling onto earlier this year that should make the answer less obvious for even the cynical. The information passed by me so quickly that it almost didn't register.

But it did.

Jaws the Restoration

I watched this absolutely fascinating 8-minute documentary showing how technical masters recently restored Steven Spielberg's masterpiece “Jaws” for release on Bluray.

I mean — thank goodness! Right?

Who wants to watch that dirty old version of “Jaws”  that's been out on just standard-definition DVD when you could watch an even newer, cleaned-up digital version on high-definition Bluray, brought back to life from cleaning up that out-of-date, clunky original film negative! (Read a little sarcasm there)

What's exciting about this age is we're able to restore these movies—we can bring these classic [Universal Pictures] movies back to life in a way that makes them more vivid than even we remember them when we went to the cinema to see them.

~ Steven Spielberg
(Director)

Even though I work in the industry, I am still amazed at the level of technology that is constantly flowing from it.

It was easily apparent that this movie would look and sound utterly fantastic when they were done restoring it. I was ready to buy a copy of it just halfway through watching this video!

Here's the whole thing if you want to watch it for yourself.

The Interesting Relevant Part

Here's the part that really caught my attention.

As the documentary ends, at exactly 6 min 30 seconds in, the music slows and becomes sentimental. We hear angelic voices say the following in order:

The outputs of this project are both film and digital. We are restoring high-resolution digital files as well as recording a new negative.

We do both because digital files, while they are convenient to work with, and they allow us a wide range of options, for archival means, we still want a piece of film to put away.

~ Peter Schade
(Vice Pres. of Content Management and Tech. Services – Universal Studios)

This is our cultural heritage. It's very important to preserve the physical film—the 35mm film and the negative.

~ Steven Spielberg

Film is a known commodity. We can put that on a shelf and store it in the proper conditions and that thing will last 100 years plus.

~ Peter Schade

These “harp strums” were like music to my ears!

All that money was spent to make an almost near-perfect digital version of this feature film, yet they spent, even more to ensure there was yet another (analog) piece of film created to ensure this movie lives on forever.

Which is the Right Choice Now?

Well, I don't think this says that my thinking is right, and anyone who wishes to throw out their original prints and negatives after scanning is wrong. Not at all.

But, this proves to me that even the technicians working with the highest levels of technology available still feel there is reason to doubt that today's level of digitization and digital preservation is “good enough.”

They must believe there are still just too many unanswered “what ifs” to take any chances by removing analog sources from the future equation.

So I hate to tell you, but whether you decide to hold on to your original prints and negatives is still going to have to be a decision only you can make.

After reading this, you may now feel your whole life's collection isn't even as important as “Jaws,” so what's the point of even treating it like it is!!!

And this still doesn't solve the possible problem if our surviving family members end up not giving two feathered hoots about inheriting our old fading collections.

What About Me, You Ask?

So maybe you could say I have decided I will hold onto my prints and slides — not necessarily for my family — but for me. Yes me! Just having them makes me feel better.

And as for my surviving family?

Well, I will continue spending my free time scanning and restoring all of my family's photographs so that when I possibly have to take this analog collection with me to the grave, I will have a pristine digital copy of it waiting for all of them.

This way, hopefully, every once in a while, when the time is right, my nieces and nephews will be able to click or swipe or whatever their futuristic tablets can do then, through all of these old amazing “story-filled” photographs that meant so much to their loved ones before them… who made their beautiful lives possible.

I really hope you enjoyed this. I would love to know how you feel about it.

For example, why do you think people should or should not save their original photo collections? Please let me know in the comments below.

Also, I've created an anonymous poll I would really appreciate if you would take a few seconds to participate in.

Cheers!

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