Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson for June 10, 2014

True that. I see more pictures of the grand kids and great grand kids than there ever were of the kids, but they’re all digital. Where will those pictures be in, say, 40 years? I get copies of the school pictures and an occasional family picture. Anything else I have to print out their picture from a face-book album. Just not the same somehow.

I feel the pain. I took a bunch of picture at the high school chorus and put them on a CD for my daughter, she has not taken the time to look at them. The incentive to “see” what is on a CD is not the same as holding a picture in the hand.

Life is always getting better right up until you die, but some good things get lost along the way.With any luck, the photos will now exist forever but few will know or care..On the other hand, I have seen formerly treasured photos tossed in the dump when the one who knew and cared died..The things my mother has saved over a lifetime my sister-in-law said would take five dumpsters to haul away. Mama doesn’t want her anywhere near her house when she dies. I have suggested she outlive her so she won’t have to worry.

I dunno….Physical pictures are great, especially old ones….But many are sitting in boxes in some drawer… be it mine or far away…. and could burn, get wet, or be thrown away when someone dies or just tires of them.

I’m more likely to see and enjoy the ones on my computer, whether I or someone else took them digitally, or scanned them in.Sure, a lot of digital pictures get taken and never shared…but I get to see many more than in the days when six people brought cameras to a picnic but it was too expensive to get enough prints for everybody. Yes, digital media change…there are low res 1990’s pictures from early digital cameras stored on floppy disks few computers can load….

In fact, there were programs for archiving family histories on floppies with your 386, and people silly enough to throw away hard copies after doing it…. and we have no idea what form of storage or reproduction will exist in 200 years.

But if enough copies are shared, and enough are stored on various people’s computers and in the cloud, posted on Facebook, sent by e-mail….SOME will be transferred to new media…SOME will exist.

I feel like the next generations have a better chance of seeing them than I ever did with all the old family pictures on paper, which never belonged to my parents.

I recently spent hours looking at a vast array of photos from the 1970’s and 80’s that have been posted by some old friends to a shared website…I’d only ever seen a very few, and now I can browse them any time, and save some to my own computer.It’s not all bad.

Oh…. and fro yesterday…. THANK YOU to those who liked my little song….and a word to those who “corrected” my memory…LOL….I wasn’t trying to remember or post the “real” lyrics!I was writing a parody of them…I changed many of them, not just rain to Raid….on purpose!Arlo implied that Janis had made one up, and people said they wanted to “hear” the whole thing….so I tried to write it for her, including her one line from the comic…I didn’t make the number of ants diminish because Janis sang eight and then nine…. even though I agree it would have made sense.:c)

Wonder if our kids will be able to find and explore all our images on computers? Wonder if they will have all the necessary passwords to access them? Know how to operate the software?

When I’m gone they’ll discover the collection of digital CD pictures I left behind…..

I still have pictures printed sometimes and for Father’s Day this year I had a mug made for my dad with pictures of myself and my children. He recently lost all the pics that were on his phone.

I’m in the process of digitizing over 50 years of photographs – mine and my mom’s. When done I will be able to find the ones I want to share and print out those few worth special attention. With the others I make movies and share them online.

Heck, MY dad still has a bajillion feet of 8 mm MOVIE film that I’d love to digitize except for the cost. It is a hoot looking at those old movies.

Before cameras were invented, and it wasn’t so long ago, people did without pictures, unless they were rich enough to have portraits painted. Are our lives overly documented, now?

Speaking of old…somewhere around the house, I have an old tin-type photo…photo is actually printed on lightweight tin.

SO VERY TRUE!

I’ve read we’re in the Digital Ice Age.Years or Decades from now there will be data that can’t be viewed or opened, edited etc.Because the program that created the doc no longer exists.And many things will not be converted in time..This may apply to pictures as well.

I used to go to estate sales and family photographs were often for sale. People would actually buy them. Creepy. Photography vampires.