I’ve done two things. First, I’m having old, damaged photos repaired. Not cheap, but they’ll last a long, long time. Second, I use Heritage Makers. I scan my photos and upload them to a password-protected account on their website. No limit to how many I can upload. I create my own books, cards, calendars, posters, etc. for gifts. Doing this has also provded the impetus for telling and sharing family stories. The photos are great, but what if no one knows who’s in them, or the story behind the picture? I help my friends and customers do the same.
Last looked at a yearbook (my sophomore year, Nerinx ‘68) month ago. My sister wanted me to see if her co-worker was an alum (so I scanned the photos and emailed them to her). The goofiest inscription cannot be shared, because the explanation would take way too long!

I haven’t taken a picture in at least 7 years, and I still have undeveloped film in my trusty 35MM Cannon-Sure Shot camera. I have no digital camera equipment, and if I did, I have no interest in learning how to transfer the images to my 7-yr old computer, which I use only for email and word-processing.

My high school yearbooks were destroyed in a housefire when I lived in sub-standard off-campus college housing. I doubt that I could replace them because the high-school is now closed.

All of the pictures I take are digital. I rarely print them out. I still have to buy photos for my kids’ school/dance/sports, but I scan those and keep them on my computer. I’m getting married next year, and the most important thing I can get from the photographer besides good photos….get them DIGITALLY!!!

Maybe the high school yearbook should change into an interactive DVD or something.

Ryan OTE, You are such a liar. It is clear that you also use your computer to blog on at least Talk of the Day!

We only use the digital camera. The memory card holds over 1000 pictures at 5 megapixels. My wife takes the camera everywhere we go. We have a 1 year old, so we don’t want to miss an oppurtunity to get a picture. Every so often we’ll download the pics to the computer. Then I back them up to an external hard drive so I have multiple copies in case the computer or external hard drive dies. She uploads ones she wants printed to Walgreens website, where you can edit the pics, order the prints, and pick them up in an hour for pretty cheap, or sometimes I upload them to a Kodak gallery to share with people. The only time I’ve used a camera with film in it in the last 10 years is when I’ve used the one-time use cameras for scuba diving in Mexico (have an underwater casing for them) and float trips.

Regardless of all this, If I graduated high school now, I think I would still like to have a yearbook signed by all my friends personally rather than a bunch of comments on a facebook page that will most likely be forgotten and long gone a few years from now. I still have my yearbook(s)after 15 years.

b. How flattering your comment.

Frankly, I consider “blogging” to be word processsing. But I stand corrected, if you insist.

Do you feel better? Have a great holiday weekend.

b is correct in downloading that camera to an external hard drive. Your computer will crash. You will lose all those photos if you do not back them up. It is so easy witht the cd burners today to keep all your photos. Also using other companies such as shutterfly to store photos are also great. Just be sure to use the site often so that you keep your account active.

I rarely put more than 200 photos on a card because downloading can become such a chore. Also there is always the danger of losing all your photos on the card by deleting and acidentally hitting delete all. You’ll know you made the mistake one nanosecond after you press the ok button.

When you get right down to it you should pick your most important photos and print them out and place them in a yearly album. Most of the folks that come to my house will pull out the albums and look at them over and over. It is not the same as gathering around the computer to watch them on a screen.

Photography is a fantastic hobby, and is easier now with digital.

I love digital and I have almost completely moved that direction. However, I do have some reservations with the direction it has taken us. It is now so cheap and easy to take thousands of pictures and storage is so cheap to keep them, I have become inundated with pictures that are for the most part duplicates or just plain bad pictures. Gone are the days of carefully constructing a shot, and then paying to print it and store it so you will have the memory forever. How much have I had friends over to view pictures on a computer of a trip that I’ve been on? It’s difficult because nobody wants to take the 3 hours or so it would take to sift through and find the good pictures. I don’t delete pictures because what if I want that one picture from that certain angle? It seems like a double-edged sword. The Digital Age allows us to preserve every moment, but at the same time, we lose those special moments in the sea of all the other things we have captured. Like Gary said, it is important for us to preserve our memories in a way so that we will be able to access the important ones. I need to sift through my photos and physically print the right ones so my children will be able to flip through an album and capture a ’snapshot’ of my life before they were around.