Sharing our work

 Spring is springing in SE Wisconsin, which means that we are due for an April snowstorm soon! I have been out to Hawthorn Hollow with my camera a couple of times to see what is popping up. On Tuesday, there was not much, but 5 days later, after an unseasonably warm spell of weather, the magnolias and daffodils had exploded and some of the early spring ephemerals were already past their prime! I shared some of the pictures I took on social media and, no doubt, they will resurface next year as a Memory. That's about as far as most of us go with sharing our photography. Everyone has a cell phone in their pocket these days and most of us take pictures with them on a daily basis. If we share our pictures at all, it's electronically. Have you ever thought about where those digital images reside? 

Photography has become accessible to the masses, thanks to those cell phones.  Where we used to take our film to be printed at the drug store, we now share our images immediately on line. The problem comes when we want to find them again years later. How well did you back up those images you shared on social media? Are they all on your cell phone? What happens if it is lost, stolen or destroyed? Cloud storage is a safe way to back up your pictures and make them instantly accessible from anywhere but be sure you know what you are getting. For example, if you store pictures on Apple's I-Cloud and delete them from your phone, they are also deleted from the cloud, which sort of defeats the purpose!  Other cloud storage systems will block access or delete your content if you stop paying for storage. Suppose that was the only place you had photos of your child's first birthday or a grandparent's last one? I back up my images in multiple places: on my computer, an external hard drive, and the cloud, just to be safe.  But the best way to preserve your important pictures is to print them!!

I am a big believer in the power of the printed image! You can enjoy them every day, on your walls and in albums, and you can share them with friends and family at the drop of a hat. All without the use of an electronic device!  Photographs hold our memories and they only become more valuable as time goes on. There is also something magical about seeing your favorite images in print rather than on a small screen. I made a book of my recent trip to Paris so that I could share the images I took and remember the events as they happened. It's a great way to  re-live the trip!

Each week, I challenge my photography group at the Senior Center to share their images. We encourage each other to keep taking pictures, because that is how you learn and improve. Next week we are having a small exhibit at the center and it might be the first time some of them have printed copies of their work!  Although not every photographer is a computer geek at the outset, digital photography can be a gateway to technology. 20 years ago, I taught myself to use first Photoshop and then Lightroom and, while doing it, became computer literate. These days, I can't imagine not using a computer to work with my images, from retouching portraits to adjusting exposure and contrast on my landscapes and nature pictures. I also print a lot of my own work. It appeals to the control freak in me, just as developing my own photos in the darkroom did when I was a kid.  As technology changes, we need to make sure our important photos are backed up sustainably, but remember, a printed image will last a long, long time!