Tech Talk

Philosophy of Photo Archiving

Tuesday, September 2, 2025

Recently participated in a photo news site, discussing photo albums. The conversation was all over the place about how to view them, on what kinds of displays, how to print, etc. Here are some of my thoughts on how and why I run things in my family on this site:

So many ways to think of this, but for me it comes down to getting eyeballs on pictures.

Why do people look at pictures? Sometimes to share a story, sometimes to remember something, sometimes to appreciate art, etc. Sometimes a phone is the perfect window, other times it's as bad or worse than the old shoeboxes of photos we used to have, where photos languish unappreciated and ignored.  I believe in a whole process for this:  

1. Curate first.
I've spent so many hours reviewing every picture my wife and I take, and deciding which ones to keep. I'm pretty generous, making sure important memories are captured. But then I'm also picky, tossing almost all similar versions and keep just what I consider the best few. This makes a HUGE difference in everything after this, because now almost all the pictures I have are interesting in some way to somebody. 

2. Metadata.
As much as possible, capture the who/what/when of the picture. It used to be that online services would auto-identify people, and then privacy concerns nixed that. Instead of depending on the whims of big corp, I note names. I also track locations with labels such as "So-and-so's home, City" which is much more user-friendly than GPS coordinates or even a street address. I've also found this is great as people move and businesses come and go over time.  

3. Enjoy the moment.
While I'm a data junkie at heart, and some of my family loves searching my archives, I realize that if you depend on search or serendipity, many good images will never be seen. In my house I run several monitors and tablets that run slideshows with different purposes. I'm a web developer, so everything is browser-based, which is convenient because I'm very platform-agnostic and time-resilient. Sometimes I run pictures on a theme, and often I run slideshows of "on this day" pictures because I've amassed a good sized library. Because it's browser-based I can also show all sorts of content in addition to static images.  

4. Don't worry about the future.
While I plan to give an archive of photos to my kids/grandkids at some point, I have no idea what that media will be. CDs, Bluray, USB flash drives, and other physical media have pros and cons, and all have limited lifespans. Besides, when many people don't have a way to connect to a device at all, it won't matter if it works. Cloud storage is much more a flash in the pan and very much account-restricted. I've seen some services offering long-term memory archival - maybe that'll be the future? Who knows. Like others have said, the few people interested in archival will have the tools to do so, and the rest will just live in the moment.  

P.S. I rarely print. Not only does that tremendously limit what gets seen, it also means we can't view videos, photospheres, and other wonderful ways to view content. 

P.P.S. My ideal photo book would be the kind from Harry Potter LOL

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