Did you know that most photographs being taken today will not be seen by the next generation. As easy as it is to take and share pictures today, storing them in digital format probably means they will not be around for more than a decade. Even the most expensive and reliable digital formats require carefully controlled conditions and are subject to what is know as "bit rot." Experts agree that as fewer and fewer people actually print their pictures, most of the photos now being taken will be lost. They will be filed in media folders and if not regularly replicated onto new storage media, they will degrade and become irretrievable.
So what is the safest way to store your most valuable pictures. Believe it or not, you might want to have your important pictures stored as prints. Those old fashioned paper things that you can keep in an album or frame and put on the wall.
The picture you see here has been in my family for a hundred and three years. The guy standing in the middle is my grandfather with his college mile relay team. It is one of my prized possessions. At one time it didn't seem so important to my dad, who just kept it in a box. It was probably there for 50 years. If a picture on a CD or DVD disc sits in a box that long it will certainly be gone. And if it is stored "in the cloud" it is entirely possible that no one will know to retrieve it unless you have made arrangements for that to happen.
So next time you post a special photo of your kids on Facebook for your friends or family to see, think about whether they might like to see it again 20 years from now.
