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Do Digital Photos Endanger History?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the what's-the-problem-here dept.

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.

2 of 479 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Flawed arguments by dweezle · · Score: 4, Redundant

    Yes, but if you run out of storage you can cull useless images to free up memory. No wasted shots.
    All that's really is a standard for permanent storage.

    --
    In a time of universal lies, Telling the Truth is a revolutionary act - George Orwell
  2. The real danger by Wolfier · · Score: 4, Redundant

    Is the digital storage itself, maybe?

    What I've observed is, digital technologies tend to become obsolete and forgotten.

    At least, pictures stored on film or microfilm can be directly seen by the eyes. Digitally stored, we have to decrypt, decompress, change into analog form...etc before the information can be truely "read".

    We are able to study scripts written as far as 4000 years ago. Any sane mind here thinks our digital stuffs can last even one tenth as long?