Prints last. Digital files will not.
Prints have ‘place and presence’ on your wall or tabletop while a digital file
will only be accessible as long as storage and retrieval remains the same.
While we all should be updating and saving collections in a current method
in order to keep them available, what fun (and how much work) is that?
Truthfully, CD and DVD have already joined the ‘8 track’, zip disk,
cassette tape and floppy as ‘history’!
This picture has survived over 50 years because it was a valued print,
while just recently I lost forever a digital file from last summer
(unintentionally of course – and isn’t it always unintentional?).
Fortunately I had printed copies of that most important picture,
the only one we have of all 16 of us together,
from 3 different states and the island of Guam.
If it’s a print, it’s easily placed in your hands.
If it’s a file – who knows where it will be next week,
next year, or if you’ll even remember having it!
If you love them, CARE to keep them around.
In years to come, family will be looking for those valuable pictures,
and they won’t be looking in your phone!
