As anyone who follows me knows, I am sold out to sharing and preserving our photos, media, life-stories and memories. Even though I am a bit “late to the party” in finding the best way to accomplish these legacy goals, I am committed to helping others do the same. Hopefully, helping them start earlier than I.
I explained in my recent blog “Better Than a Fireproof Safe” that I was only using the photo software programs housed at FOREVER for many years. Then, thankfully, I stumbled across their “permanent storage” and both digitization and organizing of photos and media on top of that. It was the guarantee of my lifetime plus 100 years of preserving what I put in the permanent storage that “blew me away”.
I remember questioning how that would work over those 100 years because in the last 15 years, I have had to change super 8 film to VHS and then to DVD’s. And the cassette tapes, really fragile, of my mother playing the piano (she was gifted) as well as an interview with my grandfather in his 80’s about his being born in Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). From cassette tapes to DVD’s.
Well, FOREVER had an answer – when you buy the permanent storage (own, not rent), a part of the payment is invested in a Guarantee Fund which pays for the recurring maintenance and preservation costs of the items in storage. That includes migration of my content to new digital formats, over time. I can’t even imagine what it will be like in a 100 years from now. But they have it covered.
That brings me to ‘Creative Destruction’. One of the blogs (photo-related) that I follow was titled “Move over Apple, it’s Adobe’s turn” by Hans Hartman. It talked about how Apple was facing widespread anger among creative professionals for showing a commercial promoting the AI power of its newest iPad. It depicted a hydraulic press bearing down on an array of artistic tools. Evidently, their audience embraced these tools for their work or hobbies. This made for unhappy customers.
Next, they said Adobe managed to anger its loyal photographer customers by ads that carried the slogan “skip the photoshoot”. Sowing the first seeds of this anger, they said, was the Adobe’s chief strategy officer and executive vice president of design and emerging products. That person proclaimed earlier this month “AI is the new digital camera and we have to embrace it.”
Responders to these ads used words like “this was an attack” on creativity of the photographer, on the skill and nuance that was unique, etc. They felt Adobe was cavalier to simply throw away those folks.
The blog then brought up the issue of Creative Destruction – the author noted he was an economist by education so it was a familiar concept. He referenced Joseph Schumpeter who introduced 60+ years ago “Creative Destruction”. It is the process of innovation and technological advancements that leads to the destruction of existing economic structures, such as industries, firms, and jobs.
As his blog noted, “Creative Destruction could not only be devastating for those affected, but could also generate opportunities and growth. And, more often than not, it’s an unstoppable force, no matter how much the affected complain about it.
So put this in the arena of our photos.
He pointed out that we can see Creative Destruction in action when you think about how digital photography more or less annihilated film photography. Photoshop and other software replaced film-based retouching and prepress (the process of preparing artwork for press, i.e., media selection, proofing, quality control checks and the production of printing plates, if required). More recently, smartphone cameras reduced the digital camera industry to a fraction of what it once was.
And now, evidently, Generative AI is impacting the professional photographer and industry in a big way. The blog I mentioned gave both sides. For example, it eliminates the need for many traditional photoshoots but it will also empower photographers to enhance their photoshoot extracting more value from it by being more creative and eliminating tedious tasks.
Soooo — back to my discovery of the unique “lifetime plus 100 years” preservation offered by FOREVER. How does it fit in to the Creative Destruction discussion? What is changing?
I had to decide what are the photos, media, items that I wanted to place in the permanent storage of FOREVER. Yes, I want to not have them dependent on me or family members to migrate the items to new formats or keep up the maintenance of the system or ANY responsibility. So I will put items in the permanent storage of FOREVER that I want to live longer than I do. That’s my criteria.
And I have often been asked, “but do I keep my original photos, my traditional ‘cut and paste’ albums, my digital scrolling frame with all my favorite photos in it?”
Yes, I have decided to keep the original photos and paper albums, especially the family history legacy materials. HOWEVER, those that I want to live longer than I do will ALSO be digitally preserved in my FOREVER permanent storage. Think about it – fire, floods, family members who don’t value them when I am gone, and other destructive threats can become real in a heartbeat.
But I have also come to realize another interesting benefit. It had already begun to show up when I switched years ago to creating digital photobooks as opposed to traditional paper albums. In a paper album, I would paste photos on the page, put a title (maybe) and far-too-few times, I added names of people in the photos. Pitifully few stories or details. And it took a lot of time plus materials and resulted in a heavy big book which only fit on taller shelving. And my kids don’t want to deal with them.
As I put a photo in the FOREVER permanent storage, there is a whole panel to the side where I can quickly type in the names, details and a story (even a really long story) related to that photo. It is the same thing that happened when I switched to doing digital photobooks – I typed a WHOLE lot more, and much more quickly, when doing it digitally. And when I look back at those photos or at a photobook I created, I have a lot more information and details –which is a huge bonus, especially as I get older. But it will be even more valuable to future generations.
Items that only make my heart sing, and really are not important to anyone else, I will put in a temporary space where I can enjoy them. But they don’t need to be saved beyond my years.
This Creative Destruction discussion made me smile when I realized that what I value about the “changed way of preserving my photos, stories, media and legacy” is not by putting paper albums in a safe physical space. It is by digitizing them, by keeping them the ‘same’ via permanent storage which simply changes the format. I, and the next generations, can still view the video, hear the audio, and see the photos and documents as well as the photobook of My Life Story (or whatever photobooks I create and store there). Even if the original physical items are destroyed – my permanent storage in FOREVER will carry forward the legacy I choose for it to preserve.
I am not sad that my physical paper album creation has been replaced by digital photobook creation – I celebrate that. (And my too-busy lifestyle demands that.) Neither am I sad that the heavy physical albums have been replaced by being digitized and put in a safe online permanent storage option. Nor am I sad that I now create only digital photobooks with much more detail, description and story added. I can only see positives in those changes.
And I can’t help but add an AI related comment. My FOREVER permanent storage with My Life Story created by me and the info and details I add to my photos there will all be insurance against any AI-related generation of those details. Hurray!Do you have questions, concerns, or want to know more? Always happy to hear from you and jump on a call to answer more specific queries! Just click HERE to set up a time to do that.
