The Dark Ages are a period of history between 500 ce to 1000 ce which we know little about as many of the important records from this time did not survive. Many of you may now have heard about the new digital Dark Age. This was a phrase coined by Vint Cerf in 2015. Vint, a Google vice-president, also known as a ‘father of the internet’, expressed his concerns that all the images and documents we have been saving on computers will eventually be lost.
He fears that this generation will have little or no record of the 21st Century as we enter what he describes as a ‘digital Dark Age’. The problem stems from our most cherished memories – family photographs, achievement certificates etc – only being stored on hard drives that quickly become obsolete and unreadable.
In addition, important moments get lost amongst the huge amounts of data that we store – finding that image of your son’s graduation becomes like searching for a needle in a haystack – amongst hundreds of photos of your breakfast and selfies.
The solution photographers the world over are espousing is to make prints of all those important moments. Take the time to have a professional family photograph and have it hung on the wall. Collect a shoe-box full of photographs you can enjoy in years to come. Scrapbook your family holiday. Use online printing options to create yearly books of your family.
So often in our line of work we hear families talk about major milestones being lost as ‘Dad lost his phone and there was no back up’, ‘the computer died and we couldn’t save anything’ or simply ‘ I have no idea where those images are’. You won’t have that trouble if you have a physical product in front of you to see. Professional photographers are also experts at storing your precious moments and ensuring they are always accessible.
Don’t let your families’ history be lost amount a pile of obsolete technology – a printed photograph will outlast the latest phone by decades, if not centuries!!