Somehow things got diverted from a discussion on labelling slides for posterity to one about the value (monetary or historical) of slides taken in the nineties.
To me, the value in a picture is the adventure of taking the image, anticipating the outcome and then showing the image to a group of people who share similar intrests. Most of my slide collection has been viewed by others, and they seem to enjoy it. >>From informal gatherings such as a basement slide show, we have come to know who has what. Many of the images in John Garden's "British Columbia Railway" book are by railfan photographers in the Pacific Northwest. To a large degree, the images were gathered together as a result of photographers knowledge of friends collections. As a result of many basement slide shows over the years, an informal archival network has been established. The arguement that because there are so many photograhers recording images today can be countered by the fact that many lose intrest after a short period of time. Thirty years on, of the ten or fifteen teenage railfans who congregated at Dorval (west of Montreal, on the CP & CN mains), perhaps two or three of us are active, and have kept our collections in order. (One is an RMC associate editor, Ken Goslett) A simpler example. Just think of the hundreds of shots taken of steam excursions in the 60's. How many good photographs do you see of those today. There is a tremendous attrition rate in photographs. We don't need to throw them out as a gesture because they are valueless. The vast majority of images end up as landfill anyway. Phil Mason Owner of three generations of Nikons, some of which work --> SPORRS: Serious Photographers of Railroad Related Subjects X-Mozilla-Status: 0001 Content-Length: 1249
