P3D Re: P3D Re: P3D Re: PHOTO-3D digest 2398 Re: P3D The Value of Photography

[norml@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Besides stereo, one of my other photographic interests is collecting 
old movie projectors. Occassionally I acquire someone's home movies
along with a machine. They are often a marvelous record of how people
lived, dressed, got married, died, etc.

There ought to be someplace that is a repository of such images as
a social record.

I suspect that, in the long run, the period of photo-chemical imaging
is going to be the only era so-documented. Magnetic recording materials,
and their recording conventions are too ephemeral to be preserved.

Norm Lehfeldt

>Now, practically anybody can get a camera, tape recorder, video
>camera, etc. and start clicking, shooting, taping, etc.  I'm not
>saying there aren't those who are still highly selective about what
>they record, but there are many many more who are pretty
>indiscriminate about it.  And yes, each and every one of these
>recordings captures a moment, and dialog, whatever that is unique in
>history and will never happen again.  Does that make it art?
>
>I don't know the answer, but I do think the question is interesting.
>How this relates to the value of photo collections is that basically,
>NOTHING has any intrinsic value.  Things are only valuable to people
>who want them, and their value is essentially a measure of how much
>they want them.  If no one wants someone's old photo collection, then
>regardless of how painstakingly each shot was set up, or how beautiful
>the results, they have no value.  Of course, it's always possible that
>people would want such a collection if they knew about it, but this
>doesn't mean that the possessors of such a collection are wrong to
>give away (or throw away) such things.  Those of us who do value old
>photos think it's a shame, but there have been countless such
>treasures lost throughout the ages.  That actually adds to the value
>of the ones that survive.
>
>Sorry to ramble.  I guess I'm having a slow morning.
>
>-pd


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