Just few weeks ago a gloomy notice was spread on the safeguard of our memories. No, we aren’t talking about any kind of complot, the international politics has nothing to do with this notice. The plotters, this time can relax a bit. This time the matter is about something that is really close to us. We are talking about a behaviour that is nowadays common to everybody.
The notice comes from Vint Cerf, vice president at Google with the charge of “Chief Internet Evangelist”. He gave the warning, later on published on an article on the popular Huffingtonpost. “Digital desert”, “black hole”, “Middle Ages of memories”, these the words he used. But what is he talking about? Obviously the Google Vice President gives a global warning about the digital world in each possible field of it. Franconi photos is going to investigate the more pertaining subject of the photos that still are a huge part of the digital world.
A question comes to my mind, why don’t we print our photos anymore? Are we convinced about the bit eternity? Do we prefer a series of bits instead of a printed picture?
I still remember an advertisement of Kodak during the “film era”, the phrase, translated from Italian was somehow fascinating: a picture not taken is a memory that does not exist. Today we could adapt that phrase this way: a picture not printed is a memory that will not exist.
Yep, if we jump into the vastness of the digital photo world only a few have thought of the survival of those memories. To me is no matter, passionate as I am the presence of more than one backup copy is for granted as it is for granted that I print the selection of the most important pictures. But, how many of you have ever made a backup copy? How many of you managed to have the memories into well-ordered folders? Not doing it, it means just leaving nothing neither to our kids and nephews nor to ourselves. Do you remember those yellowed photo albums of our grandparents? It is so nice to leaf through those pages. Of course a film had only 36 pictures maximum, so probably ten, fifteen albums where enveloping the entire life of them. Nowadays we have thousands of pictures made per a single year.
But still, why don’t we make a selection? Is printing pictures that expensive? Not at all. There are on line printing services that allow you to print big quantities for a very low price without giving up quality. One example is the Net Print service of Mediaworld. With around 10 cents of € you can print your nice pictures.
It is a task you could do once per year, a relaxing time. You take care of your memories, you review them in your mind, and then you select the best moments and you put them in a safe box where digital viruses, computer crash cannot enter. Trust me, it is nice to show your friend a selection of the best moments past together. It is nice to look at those memories some years later.
Pay attention, and here comes my warning, I have no friend that has not lost at least one entire digital album of memories. Man forewarned is forearmed…
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