One thing: What is your digital shoebox? Do you have a legacy plan for your photos?

Before digital photography we had shoeboxes. Where is your digital shoebox?

Where are your photos?

Most of you can probably answer that question quickly, but take it one step further: does anybody else know where your photos are? What happens to your photos if something happens to you? What is your photo legacy?

I began thinking about this issue a few years ago when I attended my grandparents’ 65th wedding anniversary. In honor of the event, one of my aunts crafted a beautiful slideshow documenting their lives together, going back over half a century. It kicked off a magical evening of memories and stories, and provided younger generations with a meaningful link to their family history.

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What made this possible? A shoebox.

Before the world went digital, we had shoeboxes. And regular boxes. And all kinds of other containers into which people stuffed photos. My grandparents were no exception, and my aunt was able to track down 60+ years of photos by digging through boxes in a closet.

Can your photos be found?

My aunt could track down these historically important pictures because she knew where they were and how to access them. How many of us can say that about our digital image collections? Consider for a moment: if something happened to you right now, who would have access to your photos? And would that person have the information and the tech-savviness to find them?

My grandparents in the 1950s. These are the types of photos that often ended up in shoeboxes: fleeting moments that weren’t particularly significant at the time, but tell the story of the lives we live.

Knowing where your photos are located is just the start. Consider technical barriers: are your photos locked on a computer with a password? Are they on encrypted hard drives? Does anyone else know the password? Assuming your designated photo heir makes it this far, will they understand how your photos are organized? Just because your organizational strategy works for you doesn’t guarantee it will make sense to anybody else.

Don’t forget about metadata. Where was a photo taken? Who’s in it? What was the occasion? It’s one thing to find an interesting photo in an old shoebox, but it’s magic to find one with photographer’s notes on the back explaining who or what it shows and when it was taken. Recent technology, like GPS or face recognition, may help with some of this, but not all. It’s a reminder that what you do now, as you go about cataloging your photos, will affect your digital photo legacy.

My grandparents aboard a TWA airplane in 1956. I only know the details because somebody took the time to record them – the 1950s version of metadata.

Finally, how will your digital heir know which photos are important? Will they be able to find the subset of photos among the hundreds of thousands, or even millions, in your collection that really matter, that represent your best art or your most important personal moments? I can’t imagine that anyone who inherits my photo library will take the time to go through every image looking for the best ones. In other words, you may want to take steps to make those photos more findable than the rest.

What about discoverability?

The above assumes that somebody knows you even have a digital shoebox. What if nobody does? Many of Vivian Maier’s photos were uncovered when somebody stumbled upon them in old boxes and suitcases, and they have become a treasure to the world. Some of Gordon Parks‘ most iconic civil rights photos disappeared for years until they were found in a taped-up box.

What are the chances of this kind of serendipitous discovery occurring in the digital age? Consider how often media is encrypted and formats change. Do you have old photos backed up on CD-ROMs or Zip disks? What happens if somebody finds your Zip disk 50 years from now?

Will online backups last?

Online storage of photos is a partial solution to the discoverability challenge, making it potentially easier for someone to find and share your photos. But even this approach isn’t foolproof. How far in advance have you paid for storage? Will your photos get deleted after the next billing cycle if you’re not around to pay the bill? Do your heirs know how to download the originals of the images they want?

Like many in his generation, my grandfather enjoyed photography. He probably didn’t realize how interesting his photos would be to future generations.

Undoubtedly, some online archives will be serendipitously discovered even if the digital keys are lost. Still, it’s much less likely to occur in the digital age than with a box full of Polaroids.

To be fair, even shoeboxes were flawed as a legacy strategy. They’re sometimes made of materials that damage photos, and they’re prone to getting destroyed by fires or floods, or lost in a move. They might even fall victim to that relative who just read a Marie Kondo book about decluttering their life and tossed them in the trash in a moment of misguided inspiration. But we of the digital age should have improved on these flaws, not made matters worse.

Take control of your photo legacy

Safeguarding your digital photo legacy requires a plan, which takes effort. I’ve been working on my legacy plan for several years, and to be perfectly candid, I’m still not entirely confident that it will work smoothly.

I’ve educated the critical people in my life about where to find my photos, how they’re organized, and how to access them. I’ve done my best to create a digital shoebox. Still, it will ultimately depend on somebody else’s ability (and interest) to open that shoebox and do something with the things inside.

My grandparents boating in 1983. I’m fortunate that I come from a family full of photographers, and thanks to the many photos saved over the decades I have a better appreciation for my grandparents’ lives through 78 years of marriage.

Maybe you don’t care if anybody ever finds your photos because they’re just for you. I encourage you to have a plan nonetheless. You might not care if anyone looks at your photos after you’re gone, but the world might, especially years down the road. Additionally, the altruist in me thinks that, as photographers, we have some responsibility to preserve history for future generations, even if it seems mundane to us.

I’ll close this article with a request: if you’ve come up with a good legacy plan for your photos, please share it in the comments. I’m sure some of you have thought through this issue too, and I’m curious to see what types of solutions other people have come up with. As photographers, this is a challenge we all share. Let’s help each other out.