Flutterby™! : History and images

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History and images

2001-10-31 15:39:03+00 by Dan Lyke 1 comments

Via /., Janet West says digital photos are endangering our past, not because of archival issues, but because the editing process quickly reduces images to what's interesting now. I just sent off a whole boatload of slides to get scanned, and I'm wondering if I should just trash the ones I haven't found worthy of scanning and keeping, if they'll just be more stuff that never gets looked through, or if someone could ever find something useful in them.

[ related topics: Photography History Current Events ]

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#Comment made: 2002-02-21 05:33:09+00 by: topspin

I would keep them. I took a few pics at Suter Falls [the linked pic is NOT mine] during the fall one year. There was a new foot bridge across the creek, but the bridge survived only a coupla months before being completely demolished and washed away after an ice storm.

The pic proved helpful for folks I know who make decisions about what kind of trail bridges to build over various area creeks, but at the time it was just another trail shot to me.

I agree with Ms. West that the use of digital cameras may hurt the "ancillary" history we've gotten from the examination of rolls of film. One never knows what events will suddenly make a picture useful.