Addenda to ‘Organising Family Photos’
For the last ten years or so, I have been diligent in including the photos we receive from our family through social media and messaging, into our Photo collection. This endeavour has required me to request, a) more often than not, a higher res version than the one that has come via social media, and/or b) further information about the contents of the photo i.e. the people, places, or events that are being portrayed. Often, I would need to request the dates of the photos as well because that information seems to get lost when a photo is downloaded into the social media systems we use most – WhatsApp and FaceBook. Inevitably this has been a rather painful process – particularly when there were more than four or five photos involved. Responses were sometimes slow in coming, and replies sometimes hinted at an undercurrent of annoyance at the work that would have to be done.
My requesting of additional information had gone on since photos started coming through social media, and it was typically a tortuous process. It wasn’t that my offspring were unwilling to help, but it was time-consuming for them – and they didn’t fully buy-in to the idea that their photos needed to be an integral part of our photo collection. it reached a head just before Xmas last year when I was doing my regular yearly-or-so intake of new photos. At that point I concluded the buy-in was just not there, and that I was just imposing my own requirements on other people. I decided to be more selective about what I saved from social media and to be satisfied with the resolution delivered and the information that came with it. So, for example, if a photo of my grandchildren with someone else at an unspecified event arrived with a cursory description and sized at 125kb, I would include that version in the collection with a title which didn’t identify the specific event or unknown person, and with whatever date was provided in the social media message.
I recount these experiences because they relate to some general assumptions I had made when assembling the family photo collection as recounted in the ‘Organising Family Photos’ journey. To recap, the collection was assembled by gathering, indexing and scanning all the photos belonging to different elements of the family – my parents and their ancestors; my own before I met my wife; my wife before she met me together with her parent’s photos; and my wife and I’s photos after we married. Each of these four sets of physical photos were placed into sets of four differently coloured photo albums; and I reasoned that my offspring, and their offspring down the generations, would value these collections and would find them helpful in understanding where they came from and who they were.
In assembling these collections, I encountered photos that other people had sent, in addition to the photos the owners had taken themselves. These were often, but not always, photos of grandchildren and other branches of the family. I had assumed that collection owners would see such donated photos to be part of their photo collections, and consequently I had included them in the assembly, indexing, and scanning work. This was the background to my subsequent attempts to collect and catalogue photos provided to me and my wife through social media and messaging systems; and indeed, it has produced a subset of organised and indexed photos, all with information-rich and accurately-dated titles, which provide a rich historical record through a period of about thirty years when our offspring were leaving home, finding partners, and having children. I have no doubt they will enjoy looking at this record sometime in future years, but that is not the point. They will see it is a bonus, not a necessity fulfilled.
Another assumption I made when I was assembling the collection, was that if I provided a flexible structure for the indexing and albums, then other members of the family might maintain their own indexes and albums within the overall structure. However, not only has there been no interest in employing the flexible structure, family members do not seem to undertake any detailed cataloguing of their photos at all – so far as I know. One of the reasons for this is undoubtedly that a) these days people take and receive hugely greater numbers of photos than they ever did before, and therefore the workload in cataloguing is now very much greater than previously, and b) the facilities for retaining, organising, and searching for photos, both in mobile phones and in photo-sharing systems, are now very much better than ever before. In the face of these two changes, it is unsurprising that the workload-heavy approach I have been using to maintain our family photo collection, has not been taken up by family members, despite the fact that a template framework for the activity has been fully worked out and documented, and is easily accessible.
Having said all that, what of our Family Photo Collection, that I envisaged would be passed on down the family generations? Well, at present the physical collection consists of some 76 albums and is increasing by roughly one album every year (only a subset of each new crop of photos goes into the physical albums). This is now a HEFTY collection of physical volumes requiring a bookcase of its own. I haven’t asked any of my offspring how they feel about having to take it on when we die, but I suspect they might find it inconvenient, if not an imposition. Furthermore, the fact that a more comprehensive digital equivalent is available may make the eventual disposal of the physical volumes more likely. However, these too are simply my assumptions which, as we have already seen, have often proved to be incorrect.
The collection as it stands, provides a history of the family from the 1870s – some 150 years. In principle this would be of interest to family members of the future: it would enable them to get a sense of where they came from and to have a picture in their minds of what their ancestors were like. My assumption has always been that people instinctively want to know these things – though I do also believe, that, once people know the information is available, they have less interest in finding it out and examining it. This line of reasoning suggests that having a family photo collection going back 150 years will satisfy the instincts, but will not inspire any detailed inspection of its contents nor any particular regard for its worth; but, again, these are only my assumptions.
The fact that the complete collection is in digital form does provide a number of downstream opportunities that are not afforded by the physical album collection. In particular, a copy of the digital collection can be given to each offspring down the generations. It will take up relatively little digital space, will be easy to access, and will provide rich information in the file titles. As such, it ought to be a desirable asset, worth having and preserving and passing on. It may only contain the photos from a particular 150 year era; but it may inspire future owners to selectively add photos from subsequent times. However, future digital capabilities may bring more far-reaching opportunities. In particular, AI would seem to have all the capabilities to add additional material to the collection automatically. The cataloguing format – an Index Entry (Ref No, Description, and Date) and File Title (Ref No, Description, and Date) – is clear and simple and well within the capabilities of a Large Language Model (LLM) AI, let alone a future more all-singing, all-dancing version. There would, of course, be the danger of an LLM AI producing hallucinated index entries and titles, and even actual photos, so owners would ideally need to be checking what is produced, and that may not be done as diligently as it should. Nevertheless, it seems quite feasible that a collection could be grown in that way.
Unfortunately, the larger the collection grows, I can foresee that future generations will have less desire to fully explore its contents. However, that perhaps is immaterial: the contents will always be there to answer a query or to satisfy a general desire to explore the family’s past. It doesn’t have to be thoroughly explored to be useful. Interestingly, there are probably some comprehensive family photo collections that do already extend through the generations and which could be used to explore what the current downstream offspring think about them. The example that immediately comes to mind is the British Royal Family, and no doubt there are other Royal or Wealthy families which have similar extensive collections assembled and maintained by paid curators. The views of the offspring would be atypical because of their circumstances, but might, at least, throw a little light on the matter. Perhaps such research already exists – I haven’t investigated that question myself.
I have been able to muse about the future of our photo collection because it does actually exist as a whole family collection which can be easily passed on through the generations. This is not so true of photo collections that exist on people’s phones or in some cloud system. It is not clear what will happen to such collections in the decades to come. No doubt some will get passed on, and perhaps some AI in the future may organise and research them in some way; but they will, initially anyway, be less coherent and will represent only a narrow subset of the family. Having said that, there are now so many photos being produced and stored in the world that it is difficult to foresee what will happen to them all in the centuries to come.
This post has been all about the assumptions I have made – and continue to make – while organising and adding to our family photo collection. Here’s a summary of them – with some notes about their validity.
- My offspring, and their offspring down the generations, might value our family photo collection. Notes: the jury’s out on this. None of my offspring have expressed any more than passing interest in the overall collection.
- Collection owners consider donated photos to be part of their overall photo collections: Notes: I know my wife takes this view because she actively saves such photos; but I don’t really know whether my offspring do or not.
- Other members of the family might want to collect their photos within the framework of a family-wide indexing scheme. Notes: this notion was wildly wide of the mark. There has been no interest whatsoever.
- My offspring might feel it inconvenient, if not an imposition, to have to eventually take over the photo collection, especially as it grows in size. Notes: perhaps they may become more positive about it as they grow older – it seems to me that age does seem to spark interest in the past.
- The fact that a more comprehensive digital equivalent is available, may make the eventual disposal of the physical volumes more likely. Notes: Only time will tell.
- People instinctively want to know where they come from and to have a picture in their minds of what their ancestors were like. Notes: there’s probably been loads of research on this – but I haven’t investigated.
- Once people know that the information they want is available, they have less interest in finding it out and examining it. Notes: it would be interesting to see if there’s been any research on this.
- The family photo collection going back 150 years will satisfy the instincts of my offspring, but will not inspire them to make any detailed inspection of its contents, nor to increase their regard for its worth. The larger the collection becomes, the more likely this is to be the case: Notes: none of my offspring, as yet, have undertaken a detailed inspection of the collection.
- My offspring will think that the digital family photo collection which is easy to copy, easy to access, with information in the file titles, and taking up relatively little digital space, is a desirable asset to have and pass on down the generations. Notes: only time will tell – there has been no discussion in the family about this.
- Even if future generations have little desire to fully explore all the collection’s contents, they will still value having it available to answer a query or to satisfy an occasional desire to explore the family’s past. Notes: my offspring and their children do sometimes look at particular albums.
- Having a copy of the family photo collection – even if only in digital form – might inspire my offspring to selectively add photos to it in the future. Notes: only time will tell.
- AI will have the capability to add additional material to the collection automatically in the future. Notes: this may make it easier to curate the collection, but I, personally, would not have confidence in its reliability until it had been shown to work over an extended period.
- Photo collections that exist on people’s phones or in cloud systems are less likely to be passed on down the generations. Notes: only time will tell.
- As AI becomes more widely integrated into computer operating systems, it may take over the task of managing photos, and this may well increase the likelihood of photo collections being passed on down the generations. Notes: this is a double-edged sword – AI may help a collection get reliably passed down the generations – but will the objects in the collection, and the information about them, be genuine, valid, and true?
One final point: my acknowledgements must go to all the members of my family who are unknowingly providing the observations upon which I am basing my thoughts and opinions. I have only once explicitly sought their views (that was when I was assembling our photo collection back in 2015). Other than that, I may be misrepresenting them. If so, I apologise.