Family History (Genealogy) is for photographers

This picture represents the future of your images

This picture represents the future of your images

Time and Photographs Stand Still For No Man

I recently read an article that gave me a new insight. Shedding Light on Your Life and Times External link - opens new tab/page highlights what a heritage we are building up by taking photographs.

Yesterday, today and tomorrow are concepts that as photographers we sometimes forget to consider. Time, a compositional element, has a longer view than just the moment the photograph was taken. The ordinary photograph above was taken in a time that is long gone. Yet, we recognise it and can relate to it. That’s because everything in it screams of yester-year. Any photograph we take today will become dated in some way, and eventually in every way.

Shedding Light on Your Life and Times External link - opens new tab/page is a reminder that what you photograph today will, one day, become a reminder of the past. Possibly your work will be a subject for research at some time in the future. This is true of everything in your pictures.

Photography already reaches back 150 years. The pictures have chronicled some incredible changes in that time. What will your images say about you in another 150 years? It is possible – even probable – your photographs will be passed down your family for hundreds of years. The next time you take a photograph consider what you are showing to future generations. It might be important to you. It might be history to them!

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