Why?
This is actually something that I understood early on, but not enough to fully appreciate it until much later.
My first ever digital camera was a Kodak DC3200 — my dad bought it for me when I went with him to Thailand back in 2001. It was hardly anything beyond a toy, but it was a lot of fun. I still have copies of the photos I took with that camera. I could not have imagined it being the start of a personal archive that I still add to until now. But I am thankful that I did start it, anyway.
Most of my early photos are crap. But I did try to keep as many of them as I could. Storage space was really expensive back then. So I had my archives burned on DVD-Rs. Fortunately, they held up pretty well — which cheap discs are not really known to do. I thought I was fairly organized, but I still ended up misplacing a bunch of folders over the years. Hard disk failures led to the loss of even more photos. I’ve become more careful since then, but there’s no getting back the ones that I have lost.
Now, in this era where all of us can shoot like there’s no tomorrow anytime we can or want… why does this matter, especially if we think our old photos are garbage? What would be the point?
Perhaps, the first argument I can offer is that it’s the same thing we do with other things. We review old notes and even old exams when we prepare for upcoming ones. Our old stuff gives us a clear reference point for where we were at that point in time. And by remembering and knowing that point, we get a clearer perspective of what we need to do to better ourselves and how we can do so.
Secondly, to put it succinctly… we never know what we might re-discover. I didn’t really appreciate what that meant until I was more experienced.
There’s one relevant story I want to tell. In 2014, I was already getting tired of photography. It had become so mundane to me that handling MMS 173 was becoming a chore. It didn’t help that the world of photography was becoming a bit stale in some aspects. Gone were the days where merely carrying a DSLR camera gave you a bit of prestige. Instead of being told by some random person that taking pictures aren’t allowed, you’re more likely to be asked which magazine do you work for or where and when can they see your pictures. I just managed to make it to the tail-end of that era, and there are times when I miss it. Mobile phones were starting to emerge as the dominant picture-taking device — something I had very little desire to get into.
Anyway, the birth of my son brought joy back to my photography, with me chronicling the first few years of his life. I got excited about carrying a 10kg travel backpack again when I had the opportunity to go to Osaka, Japan with my family in tow. It cost a fortune, but being there during the peak bloom of cherry blossoms rejuvinated my interest. We went back home with my camera filled with hundreds of photos (766 if my software is to be believed). That was a huge amount for me. And like everyone else, I quickly uploaded a selection of what I thought were my best during that trip. I would leave that collection alone for quite a while.
Much later on, I’d go back to that folder for some reason. And then suddenly a few photos that I initially ignored suddenly grabbed my attention — which is saying something because again.. we are talking about well over 700 photos here. And that includes what is now probably my second favorite photo from that trip.
There isn’t even anything in the picture that’s distinctly Japan. It’s Just a real intimate moment on a cool afternoon that happened to be solidly composed which other people could recognize, if not appreciate.
At first, I couldn’t believe how this picture went over my head to a point where I almost forgot I took it. And then it occurred to me. My style was still evolving. And I quickly understood how. I was starting to see and appreciate aspects that I used to take for granted. I also used to be very reluctant about shooting portraits. It was only after my son was born when I started working through that reluctance. And when I’ve had enough practice, that’s when I started rediscovering shots like this. The so-called creative eye’s perspective was widening, so to speak. And this is why every now and then, I open up my archive to review old photos to see if there’s anything I’d fancy, or perhaps see a new way of improving photos I gave up on before. Buried somewhere deep in my archive might be my best work to date. I never really know.
As time goes by, if you stick with your photography, chances are, you will experience what I did. That is, unless, you just go ahead and delete your old stuff. I understand that while storage is way cheaper than it was 20 years ago, files these days are also much larger. Keeping an archive curated and organized is also a progressively tedious task.
And that is why you should make it a point to have a good archive that you can systematically browse through. You never know. What I do know is that permanently deleting photos now takes away any chance you might have at salvaging any of them for later. And perhaps more importantly you’ll be able to cross-examine yourself more clearly and have a better path towards self improvement.
The other, more pragmatic justification I can think of is that you also never know when you’ll actually need your old pictures. It becomes even more critical when that need relates to your livelihood. Lose your final paper submission, and you screw yourself. Lose an important report at work, and you screw other people as well. The same applies to your photo collection. Amateurs only need to worry about themselves. But if you fancy yourself as a professional, taking on contracts, for let’s say a wedding… The special moments of your clients, not to mention your reputation, are at stake. As expensive as storage can be, there will come a stage where you simply cannot afford to skimp on it, either.
How?
The first excuse I expect to hear is that storage is expensive. That is true. However, the my laptop crashed excuse that I have been given multiple times in my time as a teacher… even though that is generally acceptable at school, it most certainly will not be in the professional world, where money is on the line. It is best to instil the ethic of preventing catastrophe early on.
One partial solution is to, of course, subscribe to free cloud storage. You probably have Google Drive already. While limited, it should be enough for your most important pictures. That being said, there would still be a need for a solution that can accommodate as many files as possible. The most straightforward option is to get another storage device, ideally dedicated for all your media content. Desktop users have the benefit of more options. Being one myself, I have internal hard disk drives. They’re bigger, heavier and slower. But they are cheaper per unit space. They also have a proven track record spanning decades. Take care of them and they will last years. Solid state drives are also fantastic options, if you can afford them. Gone are the days when expandability was the norm for laptops. That means laptop users will probably only have external drives available to them. These are handy devices for dealing with large amounts of data locally. They also have the benefit of being conveniently stored away from your computer as a redundancy. The smaller flash drives can do the same things as an external drive. However, space is limited and read/write speeds tend to be slow. However, I tend to be wary of them as long term backup devices because in my experience, reliability and durability tend to be hit and miss.
I think the above are fine for most users. However, those whose livelihoods depend on their media content will probably require more sophisticated solutions. Those who work in the field of information technology would know of the importance of data redundancies — having multiple backups in different locations. High capacity cloud storage is a necessity for many companies. For smaller scale businesses and freelancers, it would be a good idea to have a network attached storage device, at least. I know all but a few students would balk at the idea of them spending for these things. But over time… they will likely experience one drive failure after another, to the point when they will say enough is enough. I can confidently say that because I went through this myself. I am still not at the stage where I feel a NAS is necessary for my work, but I have learned to be more vigilant with the status of my storage devices.
That leads me to the very least that I think everyone should do — monitor your storage devices. Data recovery tools and services are expensive. However, there are a lot of free monitoring tools for preventive maintenance. Of course, this is a matter that is separate from having a permanent redundancy in place. However, awareness of the condition of your storage devices can possibly give you the chance to avoid loss of data in the face of imminent hardware failure.
This can be a rather harsh reality for anyone who wants to work in this field. Costs can be managed, but not avoided — at least not without high levels of risk. But it is one of those things that influence success or failure, whether it’s with self-improvement or professionalism. And that can matter more than any price tag.