Digital Preservation and Access: Photography Past, Present, and Future

Abstract

Photographic images that have been captured over the past two centuries offer us a ‘unique and believable’ documentary record of our history, culture, and beliefs. Early photographers largely strove to achieve image longevity to claim superiority of technique over their commercial rivals. It came as more of a surprise that the color films from the past seventy years are more prone to fading and disintegration than the silver-gelatin monochrome glass plates from much earlier generations. Modern digital imaging offers everyone a much simpler means to capture and share our photographs. However, longer-term archiving of our digital images presents even greater issues concerning redundant software and file formats, data storage failure and the fragility of the data itself. Whenever further vital migration is needed, supposing our yet unborn great-grandchildren have very different aesthetic tastes and do not appreciate or value our collection? This chapter proposes an alternative approach to very long-term digital image preservation, where our most significant photographs and research, along with the vital image context, can be safely preserved for centuries into the future, to be achieved by utilizing a proven technology many thousands of years old.