Here I am with loaded Picasa Web Albums. It has been our way of sharing our lives with those who would otherwise not be able to keep up.
But now that photo spot is filling up, so the time has come to actually purchase more space. I have been putting this off by posting “small” pictures, which I am already regretting, as well. I have most of these pictures backed up on to CDs here at home. There are a lot of old pictures stored on an external hard drive that wakes up only about half the time when I plug it in. This panic to get years of files organized and safely stored began when my old Dell crashed for the last time last fall with several months of pictures that I had not “backed up” on it.
This collection of problems is becoming a mess/dilemma! I have been worrying this thing back and forth watching it get worse with growing alarm. Mostly I retreat from it and tell myself that one of these days I’ll have time to tackle it once and for all with an easy to use online program or filing system.
But now, it is so big that I have a whole new idea! Maybe pictures are not that important. Maybe 100 years from now the great-great-grandchildren will not care that much about old pictures. Surely Jesus will come soon and make everything moot! Maybe we are just too earthly minded and the wise alternative to pictures is to become more eternity minded and just enjoy the mess as it is. Let the grand children figure out how to retrieve files from obsolete CDs with their own modern equipment… supposing I have actually written the files to CDs.
I’m looking for one, solid, practical answer. Please, comment and help me out.
Here's my long practical answer.
ReplyDeleteGo through the all your old photos and brutally destroy the ones that will not have lasting value. (mediocre (most in other words) pics of flowers, trees, even people and places, as long as you have good shots of those people and places to retain). That will drop the amount of your pictures to less than half. Then when you have only pictures worth keeping, begin writing them to dvds, put them on a backup drive, or better yet pay for online backup (remember these are the pictures that matter) and BACK THEM UP. (you will note the key words there) If your great great grandkids don't want them, they can always delete them, but if they DO want them, they can never have them if you don't make it possible.
Backing up is just no fun, plain and simple, but it has to be done. It's the "gotcha" that salesmen of digital media didn't bother to tell us when they convinced us all how much nicer digital was. Of course in the meantime, you should keep ALL your pictures in several locations so you won't lose them.
I would just add that it's a little silly to spend several hundreds on a camera, but be unwilling to spend half that on the backup system to actually retain what that camera records... Also (as far as money goes) your descendants will probably never be heard saying, "I can't believe Marmee spent $200.00 of my inheritance on keeping these worthless pictures of my childhood!"
ReplyDeleteI'm hearing you.
ReplyDeleteI enjoy seeing photos of ancestors. Another thing I heard someone say one time is that they wished other people would have had photos of them, because they lost theirs in a house fire.
ReplyDeleteI had a similar thought just lately, Arla. I think there is more to be caught in the moment that is of lasting value than the picture of the moment. However, any mattering moment without its origin in God in someway doesn't last. Like a photo without meaning.
ReplyDelete