Photos aren’t what they used to be (1 Viewer)

[JohnnyU]

Ever since everyone went away from film people don’t look at the millions of pictures they take digitally. I remember my wife putting together photo albums. She doesn’t do that anymore. Something about actually touching the pictures mattered. I miss my 35mm camera. I also think the pictures looked better with film. The point is that most people won’t look at pictures they took with their phone 20 years ago and transferred to whatever device like they would with a photo album. There is something sad about that.

 

[Capella]

We make a shutterfly book every year for us to keep. Like a year in review. They’re fun to look at the ones from 8-9 years ago. Same idea as a photo album but looks infinitely better.

 

[GoBirds]

Ever since everyone went away from film people don’t look at the millions of pictures they take digitally. I remember my wife putting together photo albums. She doesn’t do that anymore. Something about actually touching the pictures mattered. I miss my 35mm camera. I also think the pictures looked better with film. The point is that most people won’t look at pictures they took with their phone 20 years ago and transferred to whatever device like they would with a photo album. There is something sad about that.

I’m with you man, I mention that to my wife and how we should be putting together albums and she says “why it’s all in our cloud?”

 

[PIK95]

I have ALOT of pics. I have hearted many, and we use them and enjoy them at times.

 

[JohnnyU]

Ever since everyone went away from film people don’t look at the millions of pictures they take digitally. I remember my wife putting together photo albums. She doesn’t do that anymore. Something about actually touching the pictures mattered. I miss my 35mm camera. I also think the pictures looked better with film. The point is that most people won’t look at pictures they took with their phone 20 years ago and transferred to whatever device like they would with a photo album. There is something sad about that.

I’m with you man, I mention that to my wife and how we should be putting together albums and she says “why it’s all in our cloud?”

How often do both of you look at them? My guess would be not often. I think there was something to be said about actually touching them. Ive got pictures I’ve taken from vacations I never look at. It used to not be like that. Get the film developed and even if I just put them in a box, I would pull them out ev now and then and look at them.

 

[PIK95]

Ever since everyone went away from film people don’t look at the millions of pictures they take digitally. I remember my wife putting together photo albums. She doesn’t do that anymore. Something about actually touching the pictures mattered. I miss my 35mm camera. I also think the pictures looked better with film. The point is that most people won’t look at pictures they took with their phone 20 years ago and transferred to whatever device like they would with a photo album. There is something sad about that.

I’m with you man, I mention that to my wife and how we should be putting together albums and she says “why it’s all in our cloud?”

How often do both of you look at them? My guess would be not often. I think there was something to be said about actually touching them.

I look at my pics a couple of times each week. My wife also uses many to do her paintings from.

 

[JohnnyU]

Ever since everyone went away from film people don’t look at the millions of pictures they take digitally. I remember my wife putting together photo albums. She doesn’t do that anymore. Something about actually touching the pictures mattered. I miss my 35mm camera. I also think the pictures looked better with film. The point is that most people won’t look at pictures they took with their phone 20 years ago and transferred to whatever device like they would with a photo album. There is something sad about that.

I’m with you man, I mention that to my wife and how we should be putting together albums and she says “why it’s all in our cloud?”

How often do both of you look at them? My guess would be not often. I think there was something to be said about actually touching them.

I look at my pics a couple of times each week. My wife also uses many to do her paintings from.

You’re probably the exception rather than the rule.

 

[Osaurus]

We put a lot of our pics in curated folders and put them in random view on a digital picture frame. I guess I’m old.

 

[General Malaise]

Ever since everyone went away from film people don’t look at the millions of pictures they take digitally. I remember my wife putting together photo albums. She doesn’t do that anymore. Something about actually touching the pictures mattered. I miss my 35mm camera. I also think the pictures looked better with film. The point is that most people won’t look at pictures they took with their phone 20 years ago and transferred to whatever device like they would with a photo album. There is something sad about that.

Agreed that film pictures do/did look better. But it was also an added cost and a chore. Digital so much easier and yeah, I scroll them from time to time.

One thing my wife does is to create a calendar with family pictures taken during the year. I love that thing. I like having a physical calendar I can write things on. Having one with tons of our family pics makes me happy. Shutterfly does a good job with this.

We also do a lot of Canvas Wraps with our digital pics. Fairly inexpensive and fun way to decorate the walls. Our kitchen is full of these canvas wraps.

 

[MAC_32]

I look at digital catalogs with some frequency. Usually around holidays, birthdays, and summer evenings on the back deck. Our physical catalogs are collecting dust somewhere up in the attic. Someday my wife will either convert them to digital so we actually look at them or just throw them out because she won't devote time to said conversion.

 

[the moops]

We make a shutterfly book every year for us to keep. Like a year in review. They’re fun to look at the ones from 8-9 years ago. Same idea as a photo album but looks infinitely better.

Yep. My wife makes one every two years and makes 1/2 dozen copies or so to send to the grandparents and one for us to keep

 

[Capella]

We make a shutterfly book every year for us to keep. Like a year in review. They’re fun to look at the ones from 8-9 years ago. Same idea as a photo album but looks infinitely better.

Yep. My wife makes one every two years and makes 1/2 dozen copies or so to send to the grandparents and one for us to keep

That’s awesome. We combined 2020 into 2021 because, you know.

 

[Eephus]

The ability to shoot indiscriminately and easily edit more that outweighs the superior quality of film images. But man, digital prints from a drugstore just look like garbage. They're much worse than the same image on a screen or old prints made from negative film.

Has anybody gotten good results from any of the online printing companies? We'll still do an occasional order of 4x6 prints to send to family and friends.

 

[FreeBaGeL]

Most of the cloud services can/will send you a daily/weekly update with pics from that day on prior years, which is actually pretty cool and constantly makes me smile at pictures I wouldn't have looked at again even in the photo album days.

I do like the every year photo book thing. My wife REALLY wants me to play catch up and make one of those for each of the years since our kids were born for mother's day one year. But I am just so far behind on it it seems so daunting, especially since I'm such a perfectionist with photos and it takes me FOREVER to put those photobooks together.

 

[Capella]

Most of the cloud services can/will send you a daily/weekly update with pics from that day on prior years, which is actually pretty cool and constantly makes me smile at pictures I wouldn't have looked at again even in the photo album days.

I do like the every year photo book thing. My wife REALLY wants me to play catch up and make one of those for each of the years since our kids were born for mother's day one year. But I am just so far behind on it it seems so daunting, especially since I'm such a perfectionist with photos and it takes me FOREVER to put those photobooks together.

She’s not working on it non-stop or anything but it takes my wife about a week to make the book. But it looks professional when done, all the pages have themes etc. Like if you go to NYC you can make the page New York themed, Disney etc. It’s pretty awesome.

 

[glvsav37]

was talking to my parents about this exact thing on Christmas. As one of their gifts, we made them a Shutterfly book from a whole family trip to Montauk we took for their 50th anniversary. THey really appreciated it.

We use to make one every year after our family Disney trip when the kids were much younger. But we got away from it in the last few trips. We always have them on display on a side table in our living room.

Digital is great, but I feel bad that my kids won't get that "pull out the old shoebox of photos" that my parents did. We do have a bunch of photo prints from when I was a teen/college through marriage and pulled them out once or twice to show the kids. But its nothing like my parents and their parents had.

One thing I got for my wife a few years ago was called Socialbook. You give them access to your social media account and they can turn all your posts from time period into a hard cover book, complete with comments, likes, and stats on the most popular photos etc.

 

[[icon]]

Ever since everyone went away from film people don’t look at the millions of pictures they take digitally. I remember my wife putting together photo albums. She doesn’t do that anymore. Something about actually touching the pictures mattered. I miss my 35mm camera. I also think the pictures looked better with film. The point is that most people won’t look at pictures they took with their phone 20 years ago and transferred to whatever device like they would with a photo album. There is something sad about that.

I’m with you man, I mention that to my wife and how we should be putting together albums and she says “why it’s all in our cloud?”

How often do both of you look at them? My guess would be not often. I think there was something to be said about actually touching them.

I look at my pics a couple of times each week. My wife also uses many to do her paintings from.

Same. I have about 30,000 photos and videos on my phone from the last 6 or so years.

I use them all the time. All backed up to iCloud.

 

[ChiefD]

Ever since everyone went away from film people don’t look at the millions of pictures they take digitally. I remember my wife putting together photo albums. She doesn’t do that anymore. Something about actually touching the pictures mattered. I miss my 35mm camera. I also think the pictures looked better with film. The point is that most people won’t look at pictures they took with their phone 20 years ago and transferred to whatever device like they would with a photo album. There is something sad about that.

I’m with you man, I mention that to my wife and how we should be putting together albums and she says “why it’s all in our cloud?”

How often do both of you look at them? My guess would be not often. I think there was something to be said about actually touching them.

I look at my pics a couple of times each week. My wife also uses many to do her paintings from.

Same. I have about 30,000 photos and videos on my phone from the last 6 or so years.

I use them all the time. All backed up to iCloud.

Just make sure to back them up somewhere other than iCloud. Unless things have changed it is NOT a permanent storage.

Both mine and my wife’s phones back up automatically to our Google account, where I pay for extra storage.

 

[Dr. Octopus]

You’re probably the exception rather than the rule.

I agree with your overall premise but I do scroll through photos on my phone from time to time when I’m thinking about something.

 

[Encyclopedia Brown]

Whenever I see an old Polaroid photo, I instinctively see the red button and hear the whirrrrrrr sound, and then recall the spots floating front of my eyes from the flash,

And of course, the shaking of the photo to get it to develop faster.

 

[NutterButter]

I take far less now that my kids are teens. I send a select few to a digital picture frame on top of my fridge so I'm always seeing different ones.

 

[snogger]

Ever since everyone went away from film people don’t look at the millions of pictures they take digitally. I remember my wife putting together photo albums. She doesn’t do that anymore. Something about actually touching the pictures mattered. I miss my 35mm camera. I also think the pictures looked better with film. The point is that most people won’t look at pictures they took with their phone 20 years ago and transferred to whatever device like they would with a photo album. There is something sad about that.

Yea.. There was something "magical" about taking photos and then waiting for them to be developed and either being disappointed, or Very surprised/happy.
Although my trips to Canada were extra expensive back then as I have 3 to 4 rolls of 36 shots to develop * 6 to get copies for all that went on the trip.

I have a picture on my wall that when I returned to the Photo store the guy told me it was one of the favorite photos he had ever developed.
He ended up paying to print out two 11x14 prints.. One for his store and one for me.

The only prints we get now are for our walls..
But we have an Amazon Show 10 for our living room with photos on that, and I also have a digital frame in my office.

 

[snogger]

Ever since everyone went away from film people don’t look at the millions of pictures they take digitally. I remember my wife putting together photo albums. She doesn’t do that anymore. Something about actually touching the pictures mattered. I miss my 35mm camera. I also think the pictures looked better with film. The point is that most people won’t look at pictures they took with their phone 20 years ago and transferred to whatever device like they would with a photo album. There is something sad about that.

I’m with you man, I mention that to my wife and how we should be putting together albums and she says “why it’s all in our cloud?”

How often do both of you look at them? My guess would be not often. I think there was something to be said about actually touching them.

I look at my pics a couple of times each week. My wife also uses many to do her paintings from.

Same. I have about 30,000 photos and videos on my phone from the last 6 or so years.

I use them all the time. All backed up to iCloud.

Just make sure to back them up somewhere other than iCloud. Unless things have changed it is NOT a permanent storage.

Both mine and my wife’s phones back up automatically to our Google account, where I pay for extra storage.

I bought an external device where you can insert 3.5 hard drives (I know old tech).. I used to take all my hdd out of computers before trashing them so have a closet full. So, at the end of the year I backup all my photos to the hdd's and have a fire safe that keep them in.

 

[GroveDiesel]

Are you guys being serious about film being better photos? Maybe with expensive pro cameras and with people that knew what they actually doing with manual settings. But if you go look at most photos from 30-50 years ago, most of them are total garbage. Bad lighting, washed out colors, muddy edges, etc.

 

[JohnnyU]

Whenever I see an old Polaroid photo, I instinctively see the red button and hear the whirrrrrrr sound, and then recall the spots floating front of my eyes from the flash,

And of course, the shaking of the photo to get it to develop faster.

Big difference in the quality of developing film and those Polaroid picture, but they had their place in history. My wife said they used them at her work to take pictures of new employees. As recent as 10 years ago.

 

[JohnnyU]

Are you guys being serious about film being better photos? Maybe with expensive pro cameras and with people that knew what they actually doing with manual settings. But if you go look at most photos from 30-50 years ago, most of them are total garbage. Bad lighting, washed out colors, muddy edges, etc.

Film in general are better than digital pics, unless very expensive digital cameras used by professionals.

 

[BobbyLayne]

my wife has about 60-80 in a screensaver that pops up on the tv when we stop streaming

she curates a new batch every few months…but leaves a good chunk in…have a bunch of vacation & dinner photos, sporting events, memorable hikes, photos of the kids when they were little, even a couple little kid/baby photos of each other.

sometimes we just sit there chilling and reminisce as they pop up. simple pleasures are nice.

edit: also we both have a decade old timeline on IG. while we don’t scroll through it, memories pop up on my phone & FB every day. we ofte
share with each other - “remember this?”

we have photo albums but all are from the pre-smartphone era. for my 60th birthday last year she printed several off and put them in small to medium sized frames for me to put around my home office.

edit: #hadastroke

 

[jhib]

We make a shutterfly book every year for us to keep. Like a year in review. They’re fun to look at the ones from 8-9 years ago. Same idea as a photo album but looks infinitely better.

Yeah, these are much better than the old photo albums. The photos look better since they're not behind plastic and the form of the book is so much better for having out or on a bookshelf.

ETA: the hardest part for these is that you usually have a much bigger pool of photos to pick from. Of course, that also usually means less chance of having subpar photos make the cut

 

[FreeBaGeL]

If anyone needs gift ideas related to this, a couple years ago for mother's day we got my mom an Aura frame. It's basically a digital photo frame except the big difference is it pulls photos from the cloud, and doesn't use an SD card. But the real selling point is that it has an app where other people that have access can upload photos directly to the frame through the cloud.

So whenever I take a pic of the kids of something, I can open up the Aura app, and with 1-click upload that photo I just took to my mom's digital photo frame, and then it will show up in the feed in her living room.

We've been pretty good about keeping up w/ uploading stuff even a few years later now and she tells us every week how much she loves the thing.

 

[snogger]

If anyone needs gift ideas related to this, a couple years ago for mother's day we got my mom an Aura frame. It's basically a digital photo frame except the big difference is it pulls photos from the cloud, and doesn't use an SD card. But the real selling point is that it has an app where other people that have access can upload photos directly to the frame through the cloud.

So whenever I take a pic of the kids of something, I can open up the Aura app, and with 1-click upload that photo I just took to my mom's digital photo frame, and then it will show up in the feed in her living room.

We've been pretty good about keeping up w/ uploading stuff even a few years later now and she tells us every week how much she loves the thing.

We bought one similar https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07QQW2PXR?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details&th=1

Shared the Frame ID with my daughter.. Now when she takes a photo of our grand daughter, she can just upload it directly to the frame. You get a sound telling you a new photo has been added and shows it immediately ❤

 

[JohnnyU]

Won’t digital pictures eventually disappear / get corrupted on their own over time?

 

[BassNBrew]

Paul Simon - Kodachrome (+lyrics)

Great song relating back to the days when colored film became available. Colorful images and shots of old Kodak cameras underscore the influence Kodak had on...

www.youtube.com

 

[belljr]

I look at the digital photos way more than any photos albums and/or old boxes of pictures The only time they get looked at is when we are cleaning and then deciding what to purge

Not to get too morbid.....but most of the time they get remotely looked at is when someone passes away and making a photo board :(

 

[GroveDiesel]

If anyone needs gift ideas related to this, a couple years ago for mother's day we got my mom an Aura frame. It's basically a digital photo frame except the big difference is it pulls photos from the cloud, and doesn't use an SD card. But the real selling point is that it has an app where other people that have access can upload photos directly to the frame through the cloud.

So whenever I take a pic of the kids of something, I can open up the Aura app, and with 1-click upload that photo I just took to my mom's digital photo frame, and then it will show up in the feed in her living room.

We've been pretty good about keeping up w/ uploading stuff even a few years later now and she tells us every week how much she loves the thing.

Hopefully that app isn’t integrated with other cloud photo storage. I could see grandma having quite a surprise when grandson Edgar has a risqué photo he sent to his girlfriend suddenly sent from his iCloud album to grandma’s picture frame.

 

[Captain Cranks]

Google Photos makes sure I look at my older pictures. It automatically creates albums of similar topics and people or flashbacks of what I was doing on today's date several years ago.

OP can have his digitals printed if he really needs hardcopies to appreciate them.

 

[The Z Machine]

Most of the cloud services can/will send you a daily/weekly update with pics from that day on prior years, which is actually pretty cool and constantly makes me smile at pictures I wouldn't have looked at again even in the photo album days.

I do like the every year photo book thing. My wife REALLY wants me to play catch up and make one of those for each of the years since our kids were born for mother's day one year. But I am just so far behind on it it seems so daunting, especially since I'm such a perfectionist with photos and it takes me FOREVER to put those photobooks together.

She’s not working on it non-stop or anything but it takes my wife about a week to make the book. But it looks professional when done, all the pages have themes etc. Like if you go to NYC you can make the page New York themed, Disney etc. It’s pretty awesome.

Can she do a book for my family?

 

[Terminalxylem]

Smart phones make taking pictures waaaay too easy. And most photos never serve any purpose, other than wasting time/interrupting whatever you’re doing to take them. At the extreme, an ill-timed photo op might even end up getting someone hurt.

Some Native Americans believe photographs steal a portion of one’s soul, so they avoid them at all costs. I agree, and limit picture taking to animals, inanimate objects, and landscapes. But even that policy must be applied judiciously. Nobody needs a digital record of their meals, for example.

 

[jwb]

Smart phones make taking pictures waaaay too easy.

One thing I can't stand is when someone is posting pics (or worse yet, showing them to you so it's harder to get away), and it's basically the same picture over and over and over.

Any way you can take those 35 extremely similar shots of your kids jumping in the water and cull it down to the best 2 or 3?

 

[Captain Cranks]

One thing I can't stand is when someone is posting pics (or worse yet, showing them to you so it's harder to get away), and it's basically the same picture over and over and over?

Any way you can take those 35 extremely similar shots of your kids jumping in the water and cull it down to the best 2 or 3?

Yet another thing Google does automatically. It notices similar shots and asks if you want to get rid of some.

 

[Captain Cranks]

Smart phones make taking pictures waaaay too easy. And most photos never serve any purpose, other than wasting time/interrupting whatever you’re doing to take them. At the extreme, an ill-timed photo op might even end up getting someone hurt.

Some Native Americans believe photographs steal a portion of one’s soul, so they avoid them at all costs. I agree, and limit picture taking to animals, inanimate objects, and landscapes. But even that policy must be applied judiciously. Nobody needs a digital record of their meals, for example.

Ehh, maybe not of their meals, but without pictures, we only have memories. My friend took a ton of pictures when we were at college. Occasionally she'll send me one in a text of something we were doing and half the time I would have never remembered the event. I wish I had taken more pictures back then.

 

[Terminalxylem]

Smart phones make taking pictures waaaay too easy. And most photos never serve any purpose, other than wasting time/interrupting whatever you’re doing to take them. At the extreme, an ill-timed photo op might even end up getting someone hurt.

Some Native Americans believe photographs steal a portion of one’s soul, so they avoid them at all costs. I agree, and limit picture taking to animals, inanimate objects, and landscapes. But even that policy must be applied judiciously. Nobody needs a digital record of their meals, for example.

Ehh, maybe not of their meals, but without pictures, we only have memories. My friend took a ton of pictures when we were at college. Occasionally she'll send me one in a text of something we were doing and half the time I would have never remembered the event. I wish I had taken more pictures back then.

I like relying on memory, and believe the important stuff will stick with me. Not really into reminiscing though. Admittedly, that’s not a common sentiment, as evidenced by all the nostalgic references in pop culture.

 

[-OZ-]

Ever since everyone went away from film people don’t look at the millions of pictures they take digitally. I remember my wife putting together photo albums. She doesn’t do that anymore. Something about actually touching the pictures mattered. I miss my 35mm camera. I also think the pictures looked better with film. The point is that most people won’t look at pictures they took with their phone 20 years ago and transferred to whatever device like they would with a photo album. There is something sad about that.

Facebook has become our photo albums.

 

[Capella]

Most of the cloud services can/will send you a daily/weekly update with pics from that day on prior years, which is actually pretty cool and constantly makes me smile at pictures I wouldn't have looked at again even in the photo album days.

I do like the every year photo book thing. My wife REALLY wants me to play catch up and make one of those for each of the years since our kids were born for mother's day one year. But I am just so far behind on it it seems so daunting, especially since I'm such a perfectionist with photos and it takes me FOREVER to put those photobooks together.

She’s not working on it non-stop or anything but it takes my wife about a week to make the book. But it looks professional when done, all the pages have themes etc. Like if you go to NYC you can make the page New York themed, Disney etc. It’s pretty awesome.

Can she do a book for my family?

Lol she probably would

 

[HellToupee]

Smart phones make taking pictures waaaay too easy.

I definitely spend much less time thinking about taking the photo now but that’s my fault. If it doesn’t come out good I can just dump it but before I put serious thought into composition etc not wanting to waste $

 

[HellToupee]

The yearly photo book is such a great idea for family

 

[JohnnyU]

Ever since everyone went away from film people don’t look at the millions of pictures they take digitally. I remember my wife putting together photo albums. She doesn’t do that anymore. Something about actually touching the pictures mattered. I miss my 35mm camera. I also think the pictures looked better with film. The point is that most people won’t look at pictures they took with their phone 20 years ago and transferred to whatever device like they would with a photo album. There is something sad about that.

Facebook has become our photo albums.

I have personal reasons against Zuckerberg why I stay away from Facebook, but I get it.

 

[ChiefD]

For those of you who use iCloud only as a backup you can also sync your phone with your google account. So when you open up the google photos app on your phone it was start backing up your photos to their cloud. I pay extra each month to get 100gb of storage.

Just an extra back up.