![]() Pairing a photo with the who, what, where, when, and why-also known as metadata-gives it historical context. It may be obvious to you that a beloved photograph depicts your child playing in your backyard, but it won’t be as clear to future generations. ![]() Talas Mylar Sleeves are acid-free and available in standard photo sizes. If a photo is already deteriorating or especially precious, Roby recommends using a Mylar sleeve for extra protection. The binder style has the advantage of being easier to reorganize as you add and remove pages. Since you’re unlikely to find an album that has paper sleeves, look for an album that has acid-free plastic sleeves, like the Pioneer Photo Albums 3-Ring Photo Album. Avoid exposing your photographs to any glue or other adhesives. It’s safer to use time-tested paper boxes. But Smithsonian Institution Archives conservator William Bennett advises against that because at this point no one knows how plastic interacts with photographs over the course of a century. You may be tempted to use a clear plastic box that’s advertised as being acid-free. Instead, consider Archival Methods’s Short Top Boxes, which are stackable, made from boxboard, and available in several sizes. It’s also good to avoid dyes and recycled materials. Whether you prefer to stack photos in a box or arrange them in an album, it’s best to look for a storage option that’s free of acid and lignin (an acidic compound that gives trees their rigidity). A place of interest in the background (such as a family home or cityscape) or an important event (like a wedding) can add merit. Then consider whether the faces in the photograph are in focus and large enough to recognize. Put on your best Marie Kondo voice and ask yourself whether the photograph sparks joy. “That has more historical importance.” A good rule of thumb for determining which photos to keep is to consider whether an image holds both personal and historical value. “You can find thousands of pictures of the Eiffel Tower, but only this one of you in it,” Roby says. Consider how many photographs you would like to leave to your children saving just 10 photographs a year blooms to a collection of 800 if you live to be 80. But a print-photograph collection is most useful if it is curated. Your digital-photo library might be an exhausting quagmire of priceless moments mixed in with food shots from long-forgotten restaurants. It’s just as important to pick the right photos to print. If you choose to print at home, the top pick in our photo printer guide, the Epson SureColor P700, makes prints rated to last (PDF) more than 200 years on any of Epson’s fine-art photo papers. The goal is to find a photo-organization system that helps you see your most important photos more often and in a more fulfilling way. But if you would like to give your photographs the best chance of lasting for hundreds of years, we offer a few techniques that professional archivists recommend. Photos you throw in a shoebox today are still likely to be in good condition in 30 years. “I think there’s a big risk of losing a lot of digital photography, unless you’re really good at keeping up with it and making backups and printing your favorites.” “We don’t know what form digital photography is going to take in 100 years, or whether our grandchildren are going to access our hard drives or cloud accounts,” Smithsonian Institution Archives photograph archivist Marguerite Roby says. But experts we spoke with from the Smithsonian Institution Archives and National Geographic agree: A print photograph can serve as a crucial backup to your digital collection and act as a way to interact with history, for this generation and for those to come. In an age of boundless digital-photograph storage, it can feel a bit old-fashioned to worry about maintaining a print-photograph collection. But it’s easy for the important photos to get lost when people save too many. They also open a door to conversations about family with living relatives. After sorting through the houses of a few grandparents after their deaths, I’ve come to realize that print photographs can be a precious, tangible connection to previous generations. Lately, whenever my mom brings up organizing the big blue bin, I suggest something drastic: Pick the five favorite photos from each year and trash the rest. But we could never bring ourselves to touch the big blue bin overflowing with stacks of photographs, its contents spanning several lifetimes’ worth of birthdays, vacations, and friendships. Every few years during my childhood, my family and I would purge as much as possible from our overstuffed garage.
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