I helped out my friend Clive earlier this week, sorting through more than 700 photographs from his trip around Japan and Australia. We used the application iview, which works on macs and pcs (and funnily enough is produced by a company in south London). Photographs went into folders of each location and the software produced individual web galleries for each one. Clive then produced a web page with links to all the various photos. I think he has a fabulous eye and they have certainly prompted me to think of visiting Japan one day.
Sorting his images has reminded me that I need to do mine from a big holiday to Australia & Las Vegas several years ago. I’m going to produce prints (and have an album ready for them) rather than web galleries. Somehow it seems easier to help a friend or clients sort out their images rather than my own!
I remember hearing some time ago that some historians were concerned at the rise of digital photography. It has meant that although we are taking more images, we’re not printing them out. The images are staying on hard drives of pcs then being forgotten when the pcs are replaced. In the “old film” days, at least we would get the film developed with a set of prints, so the prints existed. The historians’ concerns are that we could lose a generation’s social history through our not conserving and archiving our images.
I’d heard this when my dad wanted to buy a digital camera. Although he knew he wanted one, he didn’t want to bring computers into the equation since he spends all day with them at work. So we went through a digital camera magazine, finding the one that suited his needs best, then he bought it from the photographic shop across the road from his business. He takes photographs until a memory card is full, then returns it to the photographic shop. They burn the images to CD and Dad receives this and a set of prints. It’s meant that Dad has technology that works for him (KISS) and his current life in photographs won’t be lost.
So now we’re all happy: Clive and his friends sharing holiday photographs on-line, my Dad with his modern equivalent of what he’s always done with film and me, because when Clive visits, he brings bakery goodies. Have I mentioned what a clever & delightful chap he is… ?