{"id":34113,"date":"2026-05-08T01:03:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T05:03:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/?p=34113"},"modified":"2026-05-05T19:24:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T23:24:26","slug":"food-for-thought-about-photos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/food-for-thought-about-photos\/","title":{"rendered":"food for thought about photos"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

the good and bad of digital technology …<\/p><\/div>\n

Toronto<\/strong>. In issue 27-3, George Dunbar raises a now familiar alarm in his article, “Preservation of Invisible Photographs in the 21st Century”. As George points out, the digital era made it easy to take technically excellent photographs but unless printed, they remained electronic digital files subject to accidental or purposeful erasure.<\/p>\n

George states, “Most photography collectors are\u00a0aware of the wealth of material still\u00a0available from the earliest days of\u00a0Daguerreotypes, tintypes, glass plates\u00a0and 20th century Brownie snapshots.<\/p>\n

“Such photographs have one thing in\u00a0common: a physical form and shape\u00a0\u2013something to hold on to. Today [November 2001] we are at the dawn of an age in which images\u00a0are becoming nothing more than \u2018bits\u00a0and bytes\u2019 of computer code stored\u00a0invisibly and displayed on electronic\u00a0media.<\/p>\n

“Of course, once digital camera [and smartphone]\u00a0photographs are printed onto paper they\u00a0resemble traditional images to which\u00a0we have grown\u00a0accustomed for\u00a0over 150 years.<\/p>\n

“When working\u00a0with traditional\u00a0negatives and\u00a0prints, most photographers, in the\u00a0past, adopted the\u00a0habit of filing-away the negatives and a few prints of the best images. Often, years later,\u00a0archivists were able to look at the complete body of work (the negatives) of\u00a0deceased photographers and discover\u00a0amazing photographs of historical interest unappreciated by the photographer\u00a0at the time of exposure.<\/p>\n

“I\u2019m fearful that the ease of instantly reviewing digital photographs and deleting – by the simple press of a button – those which do\u00a0not satisfy the photographer, will have a\u00a0disastrous effect on the preservation of\u00a0recorded history. Of course, the greatest\u00a0photographs of our times will survive;\u00a0but will we lose valuable images that\u00a0photographers, without forethought,\u00a0may delete?” …<\/p>\n

George’s somber article continues on and may be read by members in the issue 27-3 pdf format on the free members-only DVD\/thumb drive. See above and at right to join or renew. Send queries to member@phsc.ca<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Collectors will find old photos and more at our 2026 events. Next up is our Spring Fair (held for the past 50 years). The locale and details are on the poster pinned to this web site<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Toronto. In issue 27-3, George Dunbar raises a now familiar alarm in his article, “Preservation of Invisible Photographs in the 21st Century”. As George points out, the digital era made it easy to take technically excellent photographs but unless printed, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1944],"tags":[500,34,279],"class_list":["post-34113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","tag-accessories","tag-cameras","tag-lenses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34113"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34117,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34113\/revisions\/34117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}