- Joined
- Sep 28, 2008
- Messages
- 737
- Location
- Tacoma, WA
- Lightroom Experience
- Intermediate
- Lightroom Version
- Classic
- Lightroom Version Number
- 11.5
- Operating System
- macOS 12 Monterey
My photo collection is getting close to 20,000 edited and published photos, of which probably about 75% are family photos dating back to 1975 (pre-2003 photos are all scans).
Being just shy of my 70th birthday, I figure that I have most likely someplace between 10 and a maximum of 20 years to get my photographic affairs in order.
In the pre-digital era, someone's family photos were either (at one extreme) thrown into the proverbial shoebox with (hopefully) something written on the back of the prints giving some information about who was in the picture and when it was taken. At the other extreme, there were those who meticulously created photo albums that thoroughly documented "Who, What, When," and maybe even sometimes "Why" for each photo. Most of us probably are someplace in between. The net result was something that subsequent generations could look at and enjoy, particularly the situation where an adult is looking at photos of their own childhood.
My family photos from 1975 – 2003 were carefully documented and entered into photo albums with acid-free sleeves, etc. They are in good shape, and even with some dye shifting, should serve adult children and their children (and perhaps beyond?) well.
From 2003 onward, I have many more images managed through Lightroom, with keywords, location information, captions, etc. And in the place of physical albums, there are virtual albums online at SmugMug and a nice folder tree of exported images on a local hard drive.
Physical albums can be found by one's heirs and perused as desired. But there's no guarantee that the SmugMug albums will continue to be available (someone has to pay the annual bill, which may not be something somebody else would wish to do for very long). And as far as local exported files are concerned, it's one thing to have someone look at the photo themselves by double clicking on the image file, but it's another thing to expect that they would know how to look at the metadata to find out who's in the photo, when it was taken, where, etc.
So I have been thinking about how to leave the digital "albums" in a form that are reasonably easily accessible by those who may be tech literate but not terribly conversant with Lightroom or other digital asset management software. Given the number images involved, I don't think it is feasible to create printed books of photos… It would be prohibitive to do so.
Although I haven't been able to find discussions of this topic, I'm sure I am far from the first person who has thought about this issue. I would love to have the thoughts and advice of this wonderful community.
Being just shy of my 70th birthday, I figure that I have most likely someplace between 10 and a maximum of 20 years to get my photographic affairs in order.
In the pre-digital era, someone's family photos were either (at one extreme) thrown into the proverbial shoebox with (hopefully) something written on the back of the prints giving some information about who was in the picture and when it was taken. At the other extreme, there were those who meticulously created photo albums that thoroughly documented "Who, What, When," and maybe even sometimes "Why" for each photo. Most of us probably are someplace in between. The net result was something that subsequent generations could look at and enjoy, particularly the situation where an adult is looking at photos of their own childhood.
My family photos from 1975 – 2003 were carefully documented and entered into photo albums with acid-free sleeves, etc. They are in good shape, and even with some dye shifting, should serve adult children and their children (and perhaps beyond?) well.
From 2003 onward, I have many more images managed through Lightroom, with keywords, location information, captions, etc. And in the place of physical albums, there are virtual albums online at SmugMug and a nice folder tree of exported images on a local hard drive.
Physical albums can be found by one's heirs and perused as desired. But there's no guarantee that the SmugMug albums will continue to be available (someone has to pay the annual bill, which may not be something somebody else would wish to do for very long). And as far as local exported files are concerned, it's one thing to have someone look at the photo themselves by double clicking on the image file, but it's another thing to expect that they would know how to look at the metadata to find out who's in the photo, when it was taken, where, etc.
So I have been thinking about how to leave the digital "albums" in a form that are reasonably easily accessible by those who may be tech literate but not terribly conversant with Lightroom or other digital asset management software. Given the number images involved, I don't think it is feasible to create printed books of photos… It would be prohibitive to do so.
Although I haven't been able to find discussions of this topic, I'm sure I am far from the first person who has thought about this issue. I would love to have the thoughts and advice of this wonderful community.