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Exhibitions like PMA are essential for the imaging industry. Manufacturers of all things photographic have a great venue to release and display their products, while customers and other professionals can get a taste of all the new goodies. However, the real deal with photography is to get out and take pictures. In fact, with digital cameras in almost everyone’s pocket and integrated in mobile telephones and video cameras, we take more pictures than ever before. I will not dare estimate the number but it is definitely huge. Of course, all these files have to be saved and stored somewhere.

This responsibility currently lies with each one of us, as in the times of film. It is just that the technology is different and better. So has anything changed? I have come across an article that states that things should be different and at least in the US there should be a move towards a central storage of the Library of Congress. I am not American but this could be proposed for any country in the world. And before I torture you I will say that it is one of the worst ideas I have ever heard. Here is why:

• The huge number of images generated by virtually everybody requires huge storage and consequently huge expenditure. This means tax payer’s money that could well be used for more useful things. Better health coverage and education opportunities for everyone are the first ones that come to mind. Hobbies are hobbies but we should not let them blind us from urgent needs.
• I will dare say it, most pictures taken are incredibly boring and of no historical or artistic value whatsoever. Why store them? A lot of them should be deleted from camera flash storage cards in the first place.
• The argument that by having people lose images we lose some of our history is laughable. How many pictures are worthwhile keeping? Why save boring images that nobody would care to look at and are unavoidably of personal value? And by keeping images of children’s birthdays or people posing in front of every single place they visit we keep our history? I do not think so…
• Privacy and freedom of expression are great conquests of western societies and storing personal images available for others to freely look -even at a later date- is against those basic values.
• If I knew that my images would be seen by people I do not know, it would certainly add another layer in my decision process on what to shoot and what not to. Maybe I want to take photographs strictly for my personal pleasure. Why not?
• How about copyright issues?
• The argument that people are unable to safeguard their images -in other words their property- is the same as saying that they are stupid. Of course I disagree with the argument but of course if someone is shutter-happy and at the same time content with not storing anything at all, it is fine by me and it is not my business to say that it’s good or bad or a shame or whatever.

In the era of social networking people are keen to share online. Daily, millions of images are uploaded for friends to see what we did for the weekend, where we went for holidays or how we celebrated our holiday. This does not mean however that we want to share all our pictures with everybody or that it is sensible to let somebody else manage our personal belongings.

So what is the solution? The solution is technical and it has to do with the huge number of different file types produced by the different camera brands and models. As long as there is software that will allow all file types -and all here is very essential- to be accessed at any time in the future, there is no reason to worry. So there you go. Nice, easy and cheap!