I started my photography career in 2005, with a 4 megapixel point and shoot camera. I don't remember exactly in what year I got my first smartphone, but my photo archives show smartphone shots starting from 2011.

The Instagram era

Recently I encountered a series of the old 'Insta shots' I had downloaded and kept on my harddrive. My Instagram account has been reset many times due to my constant inner struggle: This is cool! The world should see my shots! I have thousands of followers, Or: This sucks! What can I do with those likes? No-one cares what I post!

So one day I deleted my then quite well-followed Instagram account and I downloaded the shots I had collected on that profile. When I first started out posting on Instagram I would actually take the shot through the Insta-app, add a filter on top of the shot, and post it. I don't know if it wasn't possible then or I didn't know how, but I didn't first take the shot in my phone - which would have made sure I was saving the shot on the phone itself instead of only on Instagram's servers.

Basically, I have left the file management and 'look' of my pictures in the hands of Instagram for at least a few months in 2011 and 2012.

Years later, this is what I have left: no original files, only shots already altered with filters and frames, and, the main shock: the images I downloaded are only 612x612 pixels! Not even enough to show 'full-width' on Steemit!

What else will change? How do you preserve your files?

What was 'normal' and acceptable in 2011 is not even enough to make a print of in 2018, or use in a blogpost. What else will change? Will JPG remain the standard in image preservation forever? Will RAW files still be read in 20 years time in the then industry standard photo software? Will our images of 4000x6000px still look 'big' on a future screen or will they look pixelated?

I've more than once hear photographers share their concerns about this issue, and the funny thing is: the best way to preserve your best shots seems to be in fact make prints of them on true archival photo paper.

Not only will you finally hold your shots in your hands (in my opinion only then your photograph is a finished product), but also: a box of images, or a book of your favourite shots, might actually be found in the dust of an attic and opened out of curiosity. Your images might still be seen in decades or even centuries time.

How many hard-disks do you think will still be around and be 'looked through' in a few centuries time?

My plans for the future

As long-time readers now know is I'm in the process of creating a book from my 'through dirty train windows' series. I also really want to print more of my photographs, and am researching if it's worth it to buy a semi-professional printer myself and some amazing archival photo paper. Of course, once I have the physical products I need to think of where to store them. And: decorate walls with them, both in my own and/or in homes of others. Because how much fun I have sharing my photography on one or two digital spaces (and now the Steem Blockchain), the best feeling I've had the past few years was when I sold one of my shots and then got send a (digital ;-)) picture of the wall on which it now proudly can be seen by others - day in day out.

All shots above were taken with an iPhone 4 in 2011-2012, through the Instagram app. These shots were made during an 'Insta walk' through Rotterdam, where I decided to focus on patterns and shapes and lights and shadows. We had a lot of fun editing and posting our shots in a cafe. People not knowing what we were doing though we were odd, sitting there, clearly doing a social activity while staring at our phones...

All photography on steemit.com/@soyrosa is created and edited by me, Rosanne Dubbeld, 2005-2018. Contact me if you want to discuss licensing or collaborations on creative projects :-)

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