Sometime back I posted about a "Generation of Lost Photographs." Basically, I stated that we were losing a photographic record of a generation because of the impermenance of digital images. My original argument still stands – film images are longer lasting and better suited for long-term documentation. However, there is a unique feature of digital images that I overlooked. Dane Howard has written a book called "The Future of Memories: Sharing Moments with Photoshop Elements and Digital Cameras." This exerpt was posted by Dane on Webmonkey.com…
When you start shooting with a digital camera, your mentality begins to change. You change from a scarcity mentality to an abundance mentality. You begin to realize that you can shoot hundreds of pictures on a memory card and not worry about wasting film or money. This was very liberating for me — and I have a photography background! I can’t say enough about what the digital camera has done for my willingness to take pictures. I found myself using it more often and more liberally.
The thing I overlooked in my previous posting was that since it is now so cheap and easy to take photos, we are actually getting a BROADER documentation of our daily lives. Folks are taking pictures not just of the good times and special events in their lives, but everyday occurances and rather mundane things. While this does result in more dross to sift through for quality images, it does paint a much more complete picture of how we lived our lives in the early 21st Century.