Photographers get digital but dont forget the past

My intention here is not to make you feel old, but you might be surprised to know that digital cameras have been commercially available for 19 years. The first model, the Logitech Fotoman, may seem quite primitive in comparison to what we have today but aside Air Swimmers from the developments in pixel technology, the internal use of CCD (Charge-Coupled Device) to record images instead of film remains similar today as it did back then.Of course, in 1990 few of us could have really predicted the explosion of digital camera technology - and the subsequent impact it would have on our lives. Digital camera reviews frequently talk of usability, compactness, price - and it is fair to say they have made the business of taking, showing and viewing photos far easier, and very different. Part of this has not only been due to digital cameras themselves, but technologies elsewhere ( "Smart Phones", as well as the internet and social networking) have made taking and looking at snaps extremely popular.However, the overbearing paradox of digital photography culture is that whilst it is now easier to take photos and view them, we are forgetting how to keep them. In an article at theage.com.au, this problem is described quite aptly. A survey conducted in Australia found that only 16 percent of those with digital cameras bother to print their pictures, this led to Paul Reynolds, an internet consultant, to comment: "It's not enough just to store photographs and keep back-ups. You have to keep it up to speed. The idea that you can keep the CD-ROM and forget about it for 50 years - it will not be there."Following this thought, I couldn't help but consider the implications on our changing relationship with family photos. We have seen a similar thing happen with music as data rc flying fish (mp3s), resulting in thousands of our vinyl records, cassette tapes, and CDs eventually ending up in charity shops, rotting in a nook in the basement, or worse - in the bin (apart from those few retentive types who fetishize over particular formats). Yet, the problem is not that we are going to lose our old photos.In fact, what might happen seems far worse. When it comes to our relationship with photos, individually we are all those few retentive types' I described above, except that unlike vinyl and CD's there are no people other than ourselves who will produce what we want in, lets face it, the best format - prints (and all that Syma s107 upgrade comes with them, i.e. frames and albums). Are the days of finding an old dusty photo album in the attic over? Not exactly, but the memories of certain generations may never be kept in this way unless we put the effort in, and refuse to rely on data alone.