IS THERE A FUTURE FOR THE PHOTO PRINT AND PHOTO ALBUM? PROBABLY NOT AT ALL.
So.....
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO PHOTOGRAPHY PRINTS AND ALBUMS? NARRATIVE CAPTIONS? PAINSTAKING ARRANGEMENT OF PHOTOS IN ALBUMS FOR THE FUTURE?
What happened to photographs? Albums? Narrative captions? The albums that, in either unrealistic dreams....or in reality..survive 100-150 years, and then become a window into history and the anthropology of our families?
I put to you that they are pretty much gone--and in less than another generation--all of that will have completely disappeared.
Why? Same reason we no longer need skilled wheelwrights to fashion strong-true wheels for horse carts. We no longer need single dip calligraphy fountain pens, parchment paper, most textbooks---the change is real and it is here. Skilled archers. Experienced hunters. Expert horsemen.
Smartphones take photographs with such quality, precision, ease and transmit-ability, as well as theoretical "forever" (ALMOST FREE) storage" / archiving...there seems no practical reason to print, process, paste, mount--or create photo albums. None of that is in the stars for our future.
There are EMOTIONAL reasons, but they will not carry the day. The painstaking selection of photos (digital means there are thousands, not a few stacks), paper trial runs, printer calibrations, formatting adjustments, color tweaking, printing out for a really good photo---and then mounting it in an album that tells its story??...?? That's just an emotional need for the "old time-y way"--, along the lines of continuing to use parchment paper and single dip-calligraphy pens.
Yes, it makes a superior, hand-crafted finished product, but so does a horse-cart wheelwright. But we don't generally need true-solid wheels on horse carts anymore.
Creating perfection of purpose, when the purpose is gone and the perfection no longer needed.
1 comment:
Ah but what about sitting around the table with your family looking at albums when your power is out....
They are already in order and provide a visual starting point and proof of life and past lives as long as you remember where you stored them. ;)
Ellen
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