Photos

When we got married and moved into our first apartment my husband said, "Pictures should be of people."

Ever since, although there is some art work on the walls in other rooms, our living rooms have always had a group of photos of family members on one wall. Other pictures of our kids and grandkids stand in frames on bookshelves and dressers throughout the house.

Some of the photos on the wall are of my ancestors and were taken in the 1800s, well over 100 years ago. In order to protect them from sunlight the frames contain ultra-violet resistant glass or plastic and a few of the pictures are actually copies of the originals which were scanned and printed from my computer so the originals can be kept safely in dark places.

I look at the pictures on the wall every day.

Long ago cameras could only take twelve, twenty-four or thirty-six pictures on a roll of film and now we can easily take hundreds - or even thousands - of shots with our digital cameras. But will those pictures still be viewable in a hundred years?

Technology keeps changing and in a few decades we may not be able to access pictures taken today.  And even if we print out copies on photo grade paper we don't know how long it will take for the ink to fade away.

That's why when I take an especially good picture of grandkids or other family members I have it printed at my local drugstore. That doesn't cost much and it seems worth it to be sure the picture will be available for future generations to see.

Maybe one of them will think pictures should be of people and want to display them on a wall.

Photos Now and Then

I can't even count the number of photos I've uploaded to my computer, but there are probably thousands of them. Since we don't need to pay for film and to have it developed, or figure out complicated camera settings and flash bulbs we take lots more pictures than people did a few decades ago.

My great grandfather was a picture framer and had a shop next to a photographer's studio in the 1800s so I've got quite a few family photos from that era. Of course I have wedding portraits of my parents and all my grandparents, baby pictures of me and my brother, annual grade school photos, and lots of pictures of my own kids and grandkids.

Some of the older photos are framed and on the wall with UV protected glass to keep them from fading. After all, they're over a hundred years old.

But that makes me wonder if the pictures I take and upload to my computer or save on memory sticks now will be available for future generations to see. Chances are the technology will have changed so much my grandkids' pictures may not even be viewable by the time they grow up and have kids of their own.

Even if I print photos out, the ink may fade by then. For that reason I've been taking a few of the ones I'm sure I'll want to be available in the future to the local drugstore and having them printed out there. It doesn't cost much and I hope future generations will be glad I did it.

How about you? What are you doing to be sure pictures will be viewable in the future?