If any article were to catch my eye, it would be one called "Photos Go Missing After [Computer] Upgrade."
Guys, this is exactly what I'm talking about!! This is exactly why I'm a photo pusher! Digital photos can definitely be stored digitally, but it's a fickle choice. This {article from the Seattle Times} is a Q & A. The man asking the question about why all his photos disappeared from his hard drive has just "upgraded" his operating system. Definitely worth the read.
You may remember {my experience a few years ago}: after a similar "upgrade," my whole computer crashed!
Technology is always changing, and it's also fairly unstable since computers crash and files become unreadable without warning. Remember floppy discs? Remember beta videotapes? The latest trend is computers without disc drives. Does that mean all the photos I've saved on discs will be inaccessible 10 years from now? Or will external disc drives be available? Or will disc drives come back? Or not? We don't know!
And this is why I preach what I preach: The best way to store your photos isn't digitally. It's in print. A printed photo can last about 200 years. We just don't know how long digital photos last. A printed photo has a place to write names, dates, memories, and other details that make the photo significant. A printed photo gets {seen and loved and interacted with}. It's the interaction that refreshes the memory. It's the interaction that makes connections.
Backing up your photos is obviously a good idea. But never forget that {the backup is a backup}! It's not the main attraction. Digital photos are a great backup, like film was in the olden days. But the real treasure is the actual photo, the printed version, complete with its stories and details and memories.
Guys, this is exactly what I'm talking about!! This is exactly why I'm a photo pusher! Digital photos can definitely be stored digitally, but it's a fickle choice. This {article from the Seattle Times} is a Q & A. The man asking the question about why all his photos disappeared from his hard drive has just "upgraded" his operating system. Definitely worth the read.
You may remember {my experience a few years ago}: after a similar "upgrade," my whole computer crashed!
Technology is always changing, and it's also fairly unstable since computers crash and files become unreadable without warning. Remember floppy discs? Remember beta videotapes? The latest trend is computers without disc drives. Does that mean all the photos I've saved on discs will be inaccessible 10 years from now? Or will external disc drives be available? Or will disc drives come back? Or not? We don't know!
And this is why I preach what I preach: The best way to store your photos isn't digitally. It's in print. A printed photo can last about 200 years. We just don't know how long digital photos last. A printed photo has a place to write names, dates, memories, and other details that make the photo significant. A printed photo gets {seen and loved and interacted with}. It's the interaction that refreshes the memory. It's the interaction that makes connections.
Backing up your photos is obviously a good idea. But never forget that {the backup is a backup}! It's not the main attraction. Digital photos are a great backup, like film was in the olden days. But the real treasure is the actual photo, the printed version, complete with its stories and details and memories.
This is in large part why my chosen method of preserving photos includes both STORAGE and PRESERVATION. I recommend these two companies, both of which offer me a way to preserve my photos in heirloom-quality printed books and other products. For digital photo storage, both companies save my photos in full resolution with free download ability (not true with all cloud storage services), and they keep my photos private. Again, not true with all cloud services. Privacy is a big deal to me!
However, between the two companies, Forever is the only one who triple-backs-up my photos and guarantees their privacy and security for my lifetime + 100 years. (And they also include file migration, meaning if my current photo files, jpegs, some day become obsolete, Forever will change the files to a new format so they're always accessible and never become unreadable.)
Don't be distracted by hard drives and external hard drives and flash drives and clouds. {Printing photos is where it's at.} Yup, it's kinda old fashioned.
Saved photos are an awesome back-up, but it's the printed photos that get seen and loved. Printing my photos like this gives me two important benefits: I have a high-quality way of printing my photos and telling their stories (either books or scrap pages), AND I have all those completed projects (books, scrap pages, etc.) saved in my account *forever. That means everything to me!
I get the interactive, tactile version of my photos and memories, plus some digital backups just in case. And the digital ones are so easily shareable with friends and family right from my phone! I love that I can store and share way more pictures & videos using my phone than my phone actually has storage space for! Here's what I mean.
Don't be distracted by hard drives and external hard drives and flash drives and clouds. {Printing photos is where it's at.} Yup, it's kinda old fashioned.
Another term for "old fashioned," though, is "tried and true."
Print works. Printed photos are what's real. They're what get seen. They're how you preserve the story that goes with the photos. "IMG_3489" isn't a story. It's not really even a photo. It's a digital file.
The {benefits of memory-keeping don't happen with digital files}. They happen with photos.
#dontletyourbabiesgrowuptobejpegs {Get started here.}
The {benefits of memory-keeping don't happen with digital files}. They happen with photos.
#dontletyourbabiesgrowuptobejpegs {Get started here.}
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Hooray! This post was a featured favorite here:
We really should print them but I don't personally know anyone who prints pics these days. I'm even hearing that teens in high school no longer care about getting a year book! That one shocked me as our year books are prized possessions from when we were in high school! Of course back then we didn't carry a photo album in our hands at all times like they do now with their mobile phones. Thanks so much for linking up with me at my #UnlimitedMonthlyLinkParty 12, open May 1 to 26. All party entries shared if social media buttons installed.
ReplyDeleteYes, printing pictures has become a lost art, and it means we're the most-photographed generation in history, and we have no photos. Many people treat pictures as something fleeting these days. It's a tragedy. People do consider their phones their "photo albums," but aside from the fact that phones are at risk for being stolen or lost, none of the photos their have their STORIES with them. There are no details. The photos on the phone will never be valuable to them 20 years from now (or to another generation) because memories fade and the details aren't recorded. Thanks so much, Dee, for featuring this blog post at your Unlimited Monthly LinkParty 13!
DeleteCONGRATS! Your post is FEATURED at my #UnlimitedMonthlyLinkParty 13, open June 1 to 26. All entries shared if social media buttons are installed.
ReplyDeleteThanks SO much! :)
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