In today's digital age, how we store our memories is crucial for preserving our past and future.
The majority of us capture our daily lives digitally, primarily through our phones, where photos often get stored in the cloud. For some, these images remain solely on their devices, and when storage limits are reached, older images are often deleted to make space for new ones.
This results in our phones holding hundreds, if not thousands, of images capturing our daily and in some sense unimportants routines. We do get lost in those images, scrolling and scrolling to fin that one. Of course, phone memories get bigger as the cloud capacity gets larger too but as long as you are prepared to pay monthly payments for that. Unfortunately, these digital photographs have largely replaced physical prints, portrait prints which were more common in the past.
When we reflect on our family's history, one of the most treasured tings are often photographs, portrait prints. We cherish portraits of our great-grandparents, grandparents, and parents, some of which are over a century old. These photos tell rich stories about their daily lives and some taken in photo studios where they dressed in their best clothes. Therefore preserving these memories is so important as they provide a tangible link to our heritage.
Evolution of technology and the obsolescence of digital storage formats is important to mention too.
Do you remember the floppy disks, CDs, and videotapes? They were once standard for storing data and memories but today these formats have become largely irrelevant. Modern computers and televisions no longer have the necessary drives or players to access the information stored on them. As technology continues to advance, it becomes increasingly difficult to retrieve data from these outdated formats. Without the proper equipment or services to transfer this information to current digital formats, the content can become inaccessible, potentially lost forever.
Furthermore, physical photos, prints or any portrait prints have a certain resilience. They can survive for decades, even centuries, with proper care. Digital files, on the other hand, are susceptible to corruption, accidental deletion, and compatibility issues with future technologies. As formats and storage media evolve, we must continuously transfer our digital memories to new systems to ensure their preservation. This is not always a straightforward process and can lead to the loss of valuable memories if not diligently managed.
It is important to mention the phenomenon of storing images on social media platforms. Many of us regularly post images and create albums documenting our travels, cooking adventures, family gatherings, and everyday moments. Social media has become a virtual scrapbook for many, offering a convenient and accessible way to share our lives with friends and family.
But this reliance on social media for memory preservation comes with significant risks. If your social media account gets hacked or compromised, you could lose access to all those precious images. Hackers can delete content, change login credentials, or even lock you out of your account entirely, resulting in the loss of years' worth of memories.
Another aspect to consider is the quality and resolution of images stored on social media. Many platforms compress images to save space, which can reduce their quality. This might not be noticeable immediately, but if you ever want to print or enlarge those images, the loss in quality could become apparent.
Digital images are important and how we store them does matter. With technology changes our digital literacy is important too. Therefore by understanding and starting conversations about limitations of digital storage, digital changes and the enduring value of physical photographs, we can make informed choices about how to best preserve our memories for the future.
Once I was given the best advise on how to store the images, when I just started Speos International photography school in London. At the begining image storage seemed so complicated and failing of hard drives was so obvious that you need to think of couple hard drives. My tutor at the time said to me that the best storage of your images or any images are prints. Just print them and store carefully and they will survive decades if not a century!
Thats why in my services I try to include portrait prints as I do believe importance of them! After the your Portrait photoshoot experience and 40 OVER 40 photoshoot experience packages are coming with some prints:
Prints are delivered in a photographic box which has a unique flower design. The flower combination is always diffrent because it is done by hand. You can find flowers like levander, mint and other flowers, therefore you can really smell the box. It will always will come with the wax stamp on them. These portrait prints of you will survive for decades and will be looked after not only by you but your children and grandchildren!
This video showes how unique portrait box is made and how portrait prints are stored in this box.
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