The other day an old friend calls me and asked me to help him with his computer. He was having hard drive issues and needed help saving his data. I asked him what was going on and he showed me and let’s just says that it was a mess in his hard drive. He was having hard drive failures across the board and worst of all is that his photo of his newborn was on the drive.
“Did you back up any of your data?” I asked him. His answer back was “No, I did not feel that I needed to because my computer is still fairly new (Need to remind you guys that he bought his laptop in 2010) So we tried to scramble to try to save his data, but the important thing that he wanted to save his photos that he has since his daughter was born. Well this is when things went south….
He believed that having his precious memories on disk and on the hard drive would preserve them forever, but what he did not take into count was that media does wear down or become obsolete over time. Don’t believe me? When was the last time you pulled out a VHS, cassette tape, or even an 8-track? He felt that it was a waste of time printing out the photos, let alone putting them on the wall. “Mike I got a computer where I can see them, why waste money on prints when I can pull it up on my computer/tablet/smartphone when I want” Well I told him why and explained that one of the reasons why you should have memories on a wall not as digital background is this reason.
There is a happy ending to this story, we were able to save his photos and now he understands that memories should be on the wall. However this could have been a costly lesson in memories. He is now in the process on placing all of the photos onto a flash drive and going to his local photo lab to have them printed out.
W
hat happens so often in our digital age is that we take for granted that computer media will preserve our precious moments and that we should keep them there and not hanging off the wall to be appreciated. I always urge everyone that photo that you have that you love, PRINT IT! Do not leave it on a computer device that can either get corrupted over time or become obsolete. We should keep these loving memories on the wall so all can appreciate them. Not doing so is a crime against other love ones to share in the memory. So do the right thing and PRINT IT!
As we here at Studio MAP offer lifetime digital archiving for all clients that book us, keep in mind that the photos that you do have outside of our work should be printed and archived with the latest media, and upkeep.
As always any questions you can contact us.
Author Note – Michael Ali is the senior photographer 
at Studio MAP and specialized in Boudoir, Commercial, Model Headshots and Fine Art, in the South New Jersey Area, Philadelphia, and New York.
When he is not lecturing people about prints he can be found playing Xbox at the office! 🙂