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Do Digital Photos Endanger History?
Ant writes "Experienced photographer Jayne West wrote her degree dissertation on the
historical impact of digital capture. She
argues that the use of digital photography in
news reporting means we could lose a
valuable pictorial record of history." Much of her argument seems weak to me (precisely because digital photography allows the instant culling West talks about). The digital storage itself, though, perhaps ought to make us nervous.
It's seems like the majority of her argument lies on the lack of storage space on memory cards. Two easy solutions:
1) Get bigger memory cards. You can't take as many pictures on a 12 exposure roll as you can on a 36. Common sense.
2) Get more cards. Your photographer won't get enough shots if he only brought one roll of film, so why are you sending him out with one memory card.
Both these problems exist in traditional photography, just in slightly different forms.
Regardless, memory cards are getting bigger and cheaper. This is only a problem in the short term.
on your CDs. Unless you splurge for the $1.00 CDR silver or gold ones made with the special dyes- those cheap ones you get at compusa at 100 for 20$ won't last 5 years...
....
And that assumes you don't ever play them or leave them in the light or expose them to exessive heat or excessive humidity and actually remember to back them up and
[images disappear from the web, CD-R gets scratched, CD-R gets melted]
What is the digital equivalent to printing a photograph on acid-free paper, stored behind UV-filter glass, in a climate-controlled area?
If you put that acid-free paper in some sketchy self-storage warehouse with no fire protection, it might go up in smoke. If you leave that acid-free photo on your desk to get scratched up and bleached by the sun, it's not going to look so hot either. Perhaps if you treat your digital photographs with the same respect you are giving this imaginary silver-halide photograph, you will find that they won't get wrecked so easily.
In a slightly-less-snippy reply to your question (I'm tired), try keeping the master CD in a climate-controlled area out of the sun, and leaving a copy of it on your desk to get scratched up (I've been doing this with software for years -- that whole fair-use thing). You could keep the master in a fire safe along with your other backup media (you do make backups, right?). You could even, as I have done with my data, work out a backup exchange with a friend that you see regularly, so that a copy will be offsite, just in case of fire, flood, or the Feds. And, of course, transfer that stuff on media that's a few years old to fresh media that is now shockingly less expensive than it was when you recorded the data originally.
Taking care of your data is not hard, is not particularly expensive, and can give you great piece of mind. Backups, onsite and offsite, can be handy in a pinch, and are like an insurance policy, without the getting-ripped-off-by-actuaries part (forgive me, Husker). You don't have to go overboard -- just do a little planning ahead and treat your data with respect. Good luck!
The long-term issue caused by the movement to digital cameras by the journalism world (especially fast turnaround publications like daily newspapers) is not storage or archiving. These are inconveniences that will be settled with the advancement of technology and time. While CaseyB might be able to get a few more images on his consumer digital than a professional journalist using a Nikon D1H, I agree that these are not the important issues.
The real change that digital cameras have brought to journalism has nothing to do with what's inside the camera, but what's on the outside: the preview window. Before digital cameras (and scanners in the situation of photographers that processed film on-site and then transmitted), most photojournalists didn't see the results of their shooting until it appeared in the paper the next day. Because his images were being recorded into a 'black box' the photographer was always forward thinking - trying to get the best image from the subject in front of him. Giving the photographer the power to see what they had just produced suddenly put the photographer in the editing chair, and gave him the power to judge whether an image was newsworthy. With a push of the 'trash can' button, the image was lost forever.
Shooting and editing are fundamentally different challenges. I've been in both shoes before and they require very different skill sets and motivations. Editors are responsible for representing the intent of the story, as well as trying to find the best image. Because these tasks aren't mutually exclusive, an image that the photographer might have considered unusable (because it was slightly out of focus, poorly composed, underexposed, etc.), could be the perfect choice if it does a good job of 'telling the story' despite its flaws. So, while it is true that 'infinite' storage in the future will elimintate the need for the photographer to delete any images, it won't get rid of the photographer's new role as pre-editor.
Probably my favorite example of a situation where shooting on film created an unexpected timeless image was shot by Dirck Halstead, a veteran Time photographer. He shot the famous Monica Lewinsky hugging Bill Clinton photograph. At the time he shot the image, Monica was an unknown intern that happened to receive a warm hug from Bill at an event on the White House lawn. There were a lot of photographers present, but Dirck was one of the only ones shooting film. When the scandal broke a few months later, Dirck had the feeling that he had seen her face before, so Time hired a researcher to dig in his archives and find the image. The image was found, and Dirck was the only one that got the shot despite their being many other photographers there -- other photographers, all shooting digital. Many of them probably shot that image, but who would save an image of the President hugging an unknown person?
When I was a newspaper photograper, which admittedly was 20 years ago, we bought film in bulk (like 100' lengths) and we rolled our own canisters.
The paper liked it because it was cheaper, we liked it because we could make 50-shot rolls so we had less down time changing rolls. Particularly important when shooting something like sports where you can miss the 'big play' in an instant (and my Nikon autowinder can blast through a whole roll faster than you can say "Jordan's playing for who?").
Shut up, be happy. The conveniences you demanded are now mandatory. -- Jello Biafra
I work in the media world and this is what actually happens...
:-)
EVERY shot unless it is blurred or horribly under or over exposed is kept on record. Every digital tape we shoot with our digital betacam cameras is stored and kept with no death date. I have a room full of 3/4" video tapes that has footage from 1980's and we have another storage facility with 1" video reels from the 70's. Today? we store digitally on DVD's and last year fits in a drawer (and has 3 times the amount of video shot.)
Why? because that is the way it is done.. and my fun is writing software to keep track of it all
The problem lies with the fact that we cannot read the 1" video reels anymore. we do have 1 or 2 3/4 decks around but who knows where they are in 30 years. what about in 700 years? who will be able to read the video from the DVD's? Format change is the only threat to information, printouts or actual paper photos can be viewed in 30,000 years while the DVD will require the archeologist to build a dvd reader to gain access to the contents.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
How many film cameras these days still work if they run out of power?
More than you think. Most of the pros I know have manual cameras as backup precisely because of the battery problem. That's also why I hang on to my old manual stuff -- nearly infallible backup.
Actually, now that I think about it, I only have one camera that dies when the battery goes flat...
mjs