Value your image

What value do you place on your image library? Will the images you make or commission be discarded after the first use or will they stand as documents with a meaning to others for years to come?

I have been given the task of sorting a lifetime of photography taken by my wife’s Auntie Angela. As she lived from 1929 to 2015 it is made up of 35mm slides, negatives and prints. Nothing digital. Angela was a horticulturalist and Landscape Architect with a strong interest in garden heritage so the subjects are mostly plants, gardens and landscape schemes taken over many decades.

In this age of digital photography, the task of sorting through this photographic archive, thankfully well cataloged, (well done Angela), really does bring home home the critical importance of editing and cataloging images. Also of making prints. Even if it is possible, I can’t imagine anyone sorting through the 10,000+ digital files I generate each year but handling the physical artifact is a pleasure in itself.

Many of Angela’s 35mm slides will go to historic garden archives. Many will have to be disposed of and a few gems just have to be retained. Maybe restored and printed up.