Old Photographs - new media

Last night I scanned some 20-year old 35 mm slides for a friend. The scans were straightforward so at the end I included this slide. The photograph is about 45 years old, the colors are fading and the surface needs to be cleaned. But, with a few computer adjustments the scene can be quickly restored to a presentable image. Here is the Singapore River in 1964. I took the photograph when I was a teenager. I was returning home after a morning shopping in the city. In those days the river was a busy gateway for Singapore’s imports and exports. If you visit this spot today you will find that those buildings in the background have been renovated. They are now restaurants and bars. A few boats also remain but their only cargoes are sight-seeing tourists. That empty skyline is now filled with giant office buildings.

Moving this image from film to my computer and the Internet was easy. In 45 years, will it will be as easy to move my digital photographs? I store my digital photographs on a computer hard drive. I also make back-ups on CDs. I read that CDs last a long time – perhaps more than 45 years. But will the equipment to read those CDs still be available when it is needed?

The first computer in our home had two floppy disk drives. During the past 20 years floppy disks improved, they changed format several times and they have disappeared from most computers. Any personal information stored on floppy disks is effectively lost. The same applies to business information. All those old files, reports and spreadsheets so carefully preserved on floppy disks might as well be forgotten. In most offices the only way to recover anything older than 10 years is to hope that it was printed and filed. Like my old slides, those printed copies can be scanned and resurrected to a new electronic life. In 2008 we can process a paper copy of Christopher Marlowe’s Tamburlaine published in 1587 but not an electronic copy stored on a floppy disk in 1987.

Cities are not the only things that change with time. People and lifestyles also change as we enjoy the “benefits” of progress. I photographed these Qashqai ladies one spring day as they moved with their family and flocks from the area around Shiraz in southern Iran. I wonder if the scene still exists today.

This slide is only 30 years old so the colors are still bright. The image is more than a travel record to me. It still conjures the emotions I felt then; a thrilling journey in an exotic landscape, my excited children (before they became “cool” teens and adults), the companionship of my wife and her parents, my worries about the reliability of the car on remote roads, all mixed with the fun of a family outing amid beautiful scenery. Photographs capture memories and emotions. I wonder if the moments captured by my digital camera last week will still be readable when technology had advanced another few years.