Archive and questions of…

Hello and welcome to another NathanPhoto blog, this week’s thoughts are centered around archiving, this started from a recent scare, when one of my oldest hard drive (2009) sort of reused to work, it did on the 4thtry but I thought what the hell would my archive be without these drives!!! It also played back about the destruction of my negatives from the 90’s oh the images that were on there…

This hiccup brought about the quick realisation that I needed to copy them over to newer drives, something you should do more often that I’ve done here as let me tell you it is quite the process, it’s slower than you think and so cumbersome due to the age of the drives and also my shocking filing systems back then…

It fed into something I’d been thinking about recently as in what will my kids will find when it’s left to them, so I’ve got to think about leaving it in something resembling a vaguely coherent state for these future generations who’ll take the images over. 

As usual, also added in another archving task, this time the mammoth one of copying my CDs over too, (think in the region of 10,000) Then all that is left then is the negatives these will be last as my thinking is they’ll last the longest and may need the most reflection and research on dates etc. 

Another side issue here is how to categorise them I have worked on a few basic ones with clubs / general work / junk. Or should I go with my website classifications of people / places / paraphernalia. Although for this purpose I’m not sure it fits that well. I’ll have a think. Future blog?

The one item of interest that I’d like to discuss here is the numbers of images. Little background to this is, as I was copying a City Life comedy heat from 2009 the folder contained 283 images but the last 6 would not copy at all. In the spirit of completion, I tried various ways in which to copy them over, but they wouldn’t copy for love nor money. 

After a lot of cajoling trying to persuade them to copy across, I thought that I should look at the content of the image rather than solely the numbers and all I can say is that I saw just more of the same of an unnamed performer, who could or could not have possibly made it, which would take an awful lot of research to find who they were…(what did I say about my notes on this archived material...) and for what?

I think I should add here a brief description of my shooting style at the time, it was founded by film and the ideas was to make at least 3 frames of the same moment and/or subject, just in case (these could include but not limited to: scratches in development, gunk in the colour developer at the office, shortcut with scissors, chemical anomalies, the issues surrounding moment capture etc. etc. etc.) I shot like this for a number of years as it was the most practical way to cover your bases and get at least one usable specific image for publication, but the long term effect is that the practice gives you an awful lot of repeated images that now, 13 years later, I’m thinking are these needed? Would it be such a great loss if they didn’t get copied across? 

Think the answer is…no not really…

so why do I feel such a sense of loss here?

By way of an answer all I can say is that I don’t know.

Is it to complete the backup, to complete the set, a just in case or possibly from a value point of view? But what would be the value of these images? 

(That may be another blog title and discussion point !)

For brevity’s sake and to fit the format think I’ll leave it there and thank you for reading…

Now a blog needs an image like my archive needs a PC. But what image to choose, guessing the obvious one would be an image from the set but as I don’t want to embarrass anyone by putting up an image from there after what I’ve said, I’m thinking that I’ll go with this one instead…

A photograph of singer/actor Natalie Imbruglia performing at the Academy part of Manchester University on Oxford Road. Taken on the 28th of November 2005. Ordered.

It’s from the archive as well and I think nicely leads into ideas of archiving and of the future ones about value so thought I’d post it up here. Of course it’s of singer/actor Natalie Imbruglia performing at the Academy part of Manchester University on Oxford Road. Ordered. Taken on the 28th of November 2005. Ordered.

What do we think of this?

I’m torn?

Thoughts, ideas. Comments you can get me through the usual channels.

Thanks again for reading.. 

Also I’d like to put a little footnote mention in here about the January photo thing is nearly at an end (reminder that this month’s word was New) That means Februarys will be starting soon and I’m thinking of the obvious one but I’ll see what the creative director goes with and go from there (once its explained I think it’ll be with the obvious one) I’ll talk about which one from January I’ve selected and why next week. Till then.