Nostalgia & History > What Will Happen To Your Photo Collection?

Recently a fellow who lived up the street from us passed away.

I didn't know him very well but knew he liked motorcycles. Apparently he was not married and had few relatives.

Last week a large debris box appeared on the street in front of his house and as I was walking our dogs, I happened
to look in it. Looked like a lot of good stuff was simply being trashed, various DVD players and audio equipment,computers,
printers, etc. Yesterday I noticed nearly 50 slide carousels in the box, each neatly labeled, and full of slides. Being
curious, I opened one to see that it was full of dated photos of motorcycles. Looking further I saw that the carousels were
dated back to the 1960s, all apparently slides the fellow had taken during his life. All to be sadly trashed!

I have heard this has happened to railroad photo collections because there was nobody that cared at the time of the owner's passing to preserve the collection.

It greatly saddened me to think that my lifetime photo and video creations could end up in a dumpster for nobody to ever be
able to experience again.

Trainorders.com is a great way to share railroad photography with the world, but I'd hope that you all have given thought to
assure that your collections end up in appreciative hands when you are no longer around.

Regards, Jim Evans



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/06/15 07:26 by FiveChime.

Yes, something to think about.

Very true, Jim. lots of great photographers out there without the fame of a few great names

I have been wondering about this very topic myself for the past couple of years, and have a few ideas but I don't know which one is best. A couple years back I scanned all of my transparencies and overtime have been enhancing a great many of them. I have all of my rare imagery backed up on a hard drive that has been secured in a safe deposit box at the bank. I have not referred nor looked back at the transparencies since and have considered either seeing if a collector would be interested in purchasing or donating to Trains magazine. I even thought about selling them at a railroad swap meet such as Winter Rail but realized that would be a grueling process.

Since here's securely backed up on another hard drive I will always have access to them digitally so I don't feel I need to be sitting on the transparencies. In fact he can it worries me that if there is ever a fire the whole collection would be destroyed anyways, so I feel it would be best to part with the physical transparencies.

I have talked to my daughter about my collection and told her that there is some sort of market out there although not necessarily lucrative she should not just trashed them but rather research some other alternative.

I'd like to hear about other people's thoughts or plans for their collections.

Jan Austin
Chico, CA
J.G. Austin Photography

In my own personal case, I have made a provision in my will that my slides and
associated materials go to the Klambach Library in Chattanooga, TN. While I'm
not suggesting anyone else do that, there are other organizations around the country
that can take slide collections. A caveat here that you should include some
way of financing the storage of said collections.

Nick Tharalson,
Marion, IA

This has happened to a lot of railroad photo collections - and some on purpose.

And it extends FAR beyond photos. What is going to happen to research someone does? For an example, I am constructing a database of everything Pullman built (and a lot not built, but proposed or marketed). Not the freight cars that were not included in the original Lot books (meaning after Lot 1000). That now includes over 15,000 rows of data, and includes all Floor Plans still extant (at the Pullman Library - I intend to continue past that) and those referenced in the original Specifications. This will go further, as it has Standard Steel & some ACF & Budd. I also have tens of thousands of images. And, over 4,000 books (down from a high of 5,500). Fortunately, my wife knows what to do with it. But...

If a wife is the only one who knows, that tends to be an issue - as a husband and wife often travel together. No children. Distant brother & sister. Obviously, a will has to be started, this was hammered home after my mother passed away this year, and there were tons of photos, and other stuff that we knew nothing about.

Which brings me to something else - YOU may know what a photo is - but others may certainly not. Look how many "M-File" or "whereisit" images have been here. LABEL.

OTOH, I know of one individual who stated, quite matter-of-factly, that upon his demise, he has stipulated that everything he has (including a lot of original negatives and photos by Kindig, Perry & other photographers of Denver) should be destroyed, in total. The ultimate "if I can't play with my toys, NO ONE can". A foolish concept IMHO, but one far more prevalent than we might wish.

What happens to digital libraries of data, documents, projects, programs, e-mails, images, etc.?

Take a look at any model railroad swap meet and you will see at least 1 estate sale. The results bring tears in my eyes, often. I went to one auction where the guy had hundreds of brass HO streamlined locomotives - in a display case - and when it came time, the auction house basically put "lots" of locomotives into bins, with no regard to relationships they had absolutely NO concept of. So a hudson got a K4 tender, a Firefly got a LV tender, etc. etc. I was able to reunite about half before the auction started (with their permission) along with boxes.

I had once floated an idea of a project where by there is a digital repository, where a person could (in essence) back up their data and have a legacy named in event of demise - similar to what Facebook has announced lately (in terms of the Facebook data). This was met by universal dismissal - many railroad historians are lone wolves, and/or have the attitude described above. "Throw it all out" is a VERY common response.

One example - about 6 months ago, a IRM officer was walking his dog in Chicago. He stumbled upon a box alongside a dumpster, filled with stuff. What was in it? A Pullman Catalog, builders photos, drawings, a notebook from a P-S employee with priceless data - the list goes on. He was able to get that one box - no telling what was in the dumpster.

Most archives now will only take collections ( and this is hitting RR specific Historical societies VERY hard) with an up-front fee, a maintenance deposit (one enough for a forecast 10-20 years of maintenance), $n per foot of space, COMPLETE and total ownership. the right to throw anything away, sell anything, or otherwise dispose of anything without ANY communication to the original owners, etc. That is *IF* they even take it.

One concept has been floated about lately - the area around the IRM has a variety of unused warehouses, some for sale. The concept was to purchase one, install the Pullman Library in part, IRM archives in part, and rent out sections to RRHS. There are some RRHS that have (literally) tons of material, and all in basements prone to flooding (or the demise of owners whereby they will br thrown out).

OTOH, there are a *LOT* of large buildings that are empty throughout the country - former Best Buys, Circuit Citys, Targets, WalMarts etc. where the former occupant left for better sales or bigger space. Perfect with loading docks, HVAC, etc. All it requires is a bit of money (which is ALWAYS the rub).

Another problem - some people WAY over value their collection (of 40 years of MR or Trains or what have you). That inhibits a lot of archives.

This is a serious subject. Something has to be done. I brought this up years ago to the national RRHS and was soundly ignored as it wasn't in their charter and they wanted nothing to do with it. They'd rather save the prototype artifacts. So...stuff gets tossed daily. Better get used to it. That key piece of info is likely going tomorrow.

Sorry for the length....

I'm selling mine. Had about 30K slides about 3 years ago. Not just mine but also stuff I bought.

Adam

Here's another take on Photo collections... One of the Premier photographers of the Sacramento Northern Railway and the Pacific Electric was "Art Alter" .. He shot 16mm film and took thousands of images! He died quite young of a disease that was not pleasant as I recall but can't remember the name!
His Father was terribly upset with his loss and physically destroyed a LOT of material ! Some stuff was saved but not anywhere near what Art had put together! Sad !!

KRK

My photos, etc will all go to James T. Wilson. Period! wag216

Lots of well known photographers on e-bay selling stuff, their "B Grade" but none the less good stuff

Not only photographs but everything else you have collected
for 50 plus years. I would enjoy hearing comments regarding
various museums around the country as possible donation sites.
Huntington Library?
Western Ry. Museum, Rio Vista Jct.?
Calif. State Railroad Museum, Sacramento?
These are just a few that come to mind.

The problem is - for many of those - does the archive have available staff and space (and resources).

It's fine for someone to think that an archive can simply take in a collection of photos - but...in order to do so, they have to be able to index it, find archival quality materials to store the items in, have the physical space to store the material in (and said space should be conditioned space (HVAC/Humidity controlled, etc.) and have utilities (water, electricity, gas).

Now...how many questions have you seen in the past year from the WRM - with regard to location and/or subject/photographer? That all takes time, something not all volunteer organizations have.

Then you have to consider what happens when the archive receives a big shipment. For instance, the Pullman Library just received 68 pallets of material (figure 4' x 4' x 6'). We already have requests for the material...

All of this is one reason why I say - make sure your stuff is organized, and, esp. labeled!

My slide collection consists of about 7600 slides taken 1972-1993. All of my slide mounts include my name, date and place taken, and subject information. About 130 are personal slides and about 770 are extra slides (slides I have kept in a safety deposit box so I would retain a small collection in event of disaster). I am in the process of scanning my personal and extra slides. I am over 80% finished. These are the slides I post on TO. I plan to retain these slides and let my children determine the disposition. I expect one will keep them.
The bulk then, about 6700, I have not made a decision. None have ever been published. I always liked and pursued the unusual. I would consider selling them. However, before accepting a pittance, I would much rather donate them. On the other hand, I may decide to scan and catalog them myself. This could take several years. I am certain, though, that if anything unexpected happened to me, this collection would be safe.
ALLEN

A new requirement by some historical societies and institutions that take in photo collections is that the photos be scanned ahead of time... I already know of one gentleman that is close to 90 now with a thousands of negatives (he sells photos for a living) and he was told that by a well know historical society. They also only wanted railroad images pertaining to their geographical area.

Victor A. Baird
http://www.erstwhilepublications.com



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/06/15 16:45 by wabash2800.

My daughter will prob. have a big bonfire in the backyard...Steve

atsffan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Let's just post everything we've got on TO; then
> add Todd to our will with an "in perpetuum"
> funding clause.
>
> That way your estate will send Todd $29.95 every
> year forever!
>
> Richard

That is the reason I have a TO subscription.
My best friend passed away a couple years ago and left boxes and boxes of slides.
He was a TO member for a long time but never got into posting any of his stuff.
His passing prompted me to join so I could post the pictures he never had a chance to.

If you have children, make sure they understand the value of you photos. Fortunately, my three children value my photo collection, including the railroad photos. I'm sure it will be well preserved. Gerry

I am the Archive Manager for the Northwestern Pacific Railroad Historical Society. We recently opened a 1000' space as Archive and Museum and when that happened a lot of material seemed to 'come out of the woodwork' so to speak. We separate what fits our mission and send stuff that does not to other societies. We recently sent SPHS a box or two and got a treasure trove of maps that related to NWP. A former owner of the line came in one day with 17-18 boxes of paper files. Some are relevant, some need shredding, but there were a couple of boxes of real goodies, Surveyors books with notes and drawings. We have a dedicated work station to scan pictures and slides. We will hopefully soon have a negative scanner for up to 8x10 negatives too. We have never asked for money from the donor, but we do sell extra copies of books and DVDs to help out with finances. We also accept donations. Long term goal is an online catalog. www.nwprrhs.org
Gus

I'd like to donate mine (not that they are that great or that there are that many of them) to the Portola RR Museum or Morning Sun Books but am open to other sugestions.

Tom Y

I would really like to see TO subscribers post their favorite pics, along with telling the stories that go along with them. I started running through my material several years ago, but have been in hiatus due to moves and past computer issues. I hope to start back up later this year, when I get settled into a permanent location. I have since acquired a better slide scanner. I guess when you look at it, at some point we have to accept that everything can't be preserved. The things we hold dear to us will go away, as we will, and new people will find new things to obsess about. That's the way life is. I do have the feeling from time to time, as I'm sure many of you do, that somewhere, someone has that mother lode of pictures that I would give anything to see, if only I could find them. I have not even begun to attempt to monitor e-bay for that collection. This stuff can drive you nuts if you think about it too much, lol.