Historic Hood River
Oak Street 2014
Notes
Here’s a little recent history, as in yesterday. Snow storms are always a great excuse to run around town with a camera. I ran into photographer Darryl Lloyd who politely pointed out that the lighting was terrible, but my goal was to document our town, not win critical acclaim.
This one is a passable attempt at reproducing this great 1902 view. I suspect the photographer in 1902 didn’t have to worry about traffic coming up behind him.
Photography is so cheap and easy compared to 1902, but I fear that works against our photographic heritage. We may all take images daily, but how many of them will make it past your next phone or computer upgrade? How many of them include notes so someone in 2114 will know what they are looking at? Most people think twice before throwing away a family photo album, but how permanent is your Facebook page?
As a result of my excursion yesterday I’ll be adding a bunch of new images to our digital archive. As the year rolls on we’ll be talking more about digital archives, and what you can do to help us fill some of the gaps in the Museum’s collection.
l.e.
I opened this up and thought…."someone went out and took a photo yesterday".
I guess they did.
The computer age has changed our entire outlook on photos. Why label? Google will have the answers!
My family is having a "pie social" get together this month. The invitations used a 1955 photo of a family gathering. Luckily we still have an elderly aunt with a good memory. She was able to identify everyone.
It is important to label today’s photos, but I’m thinking it might be important to try and get our childhood photos labeled while we still have a memory or someone around that has a memory.
Arlen Sheldrake
I am also very concerned about retention of people’s digital photo collections. It has been quite common for family members to give the rail history groups shoe boxes full of train/railroad pictures after they go through a passed loved ones "stuff". Will they do the same with a hard drive? As Arthur says, today is important history to someone looking back from 2114; how do we ensure that what we are shooting today is preserved for tomorrow? So far I haven’t seen any guidance from the heritage commission or other such groups.
Nice picture of downtown Hood River as we hopefully all return to rain.
Norma Jubitz Simpson
JoAnn and Norma say Aloha. Don’t you wish you were with us in Hawaii?
Rawhyde
Anyone care to hazzard a guess as to what this scene will look like in another hundred years? Remove the cars and replace with driver-less transport vehicles, grow the trees, snow will probably be removed and stored efficiently (automated suction vehicles doing rounds to the reservoirs), the pub will still be there but without the greasy smell, etc.
Let’s just hope the character is still intact!
Arlen Sheldrake
Rawhyde…..interesting question. I couldn’t have guessed the transition from the 1950s to 2000 let alone a 100 year projection. From my memory we only complained about the wind and felt we were blessed when we had that rare calm day; a primary economic community driver…..no way. And thanks Norma for your travel log……after four days stuck in the house, yes Hawaii sounds great.
Buzz
My memory from the 50’s is that it was not considered proper for young ladies to gloat.
Norma Jubitz Simpson
We no longer consider ourselves "young ladies." We are women of the modern generation!
nels
Nice documentation Arthur. Don’t realize the change until looking at a photo. And now with color. How will digital handle aging? One problem is that presently there is no way to add a narrative to digital photos.
Arthur
It is actually very easy to add comments to digital photos. Mac or Windows, you can add tags/keywords which are very helpful to organizing and sorting your photos in digital photo albums, and there is also a "notes" field associated with the digital image file which lets you add a narrative. If you enter notes, they will travel with the image even if you edit it. Also, if you take an image with your smartphone it will usually also be automatically tagged with the geographic location. Some photo editing applications will strip that information when you "share" an image so you aren’t publishing your exact location, so you need to make the decision whether you want the geotag to be passed along with the export.
Buzz
Not the proper venue for this discussion with you two "non-young" ladies so we can continue it at our 55th get together in Hood River this summer.
Bill P.
Good subject Arlene for our "gathering" this spring or early summer get togther. How do we catalog and perserve our digital images for the future?