Saturday, January 12, 2008

The Flamingos

Actual (paraphrased) conversation from, I think, yesterday:

Himself: Should we just get rid of the flamingos?

Herself: Eventually, but not right now. It helps people find the house.

We were talking about our cheap plastic flamingos in front of our house. We do use them as a landmark when we want people to find the house. When it is for sale, though? No. They are out of here.

There will be no place in condo life for cheap plastic flamingos. Our high rise will have strict rules about what can be on the balconies for safety and aesthetics. Fine with me. Sadly I once had an extensive collection based on the pink birds.

It is much easier to hang on to digital photos. This one is from May 2006, our anniversary trip to Paris. I talked about this shop window before using a different shot.

I think I have five or ten cubic feet of actual prints of photos. I have discarded (or given to the art magnet school for collages) a lot of rejects and dups. But more reduction will be needed. Some I have in physical form that started out digital and some that started out as emulsion have been scanned. But mostly it was (1) develop film; (2) stick in boxes, drawers, albums; (3) sort later until nothing can really be located; (4) despair at the collection and what to do with it. I have tried to move most prints and slides to archival quality storage. Also a lot of my mom's collection. But some are still in boxes, envelopes and cheap albums. Sigh. Yeah, it's easier to keep thousands of digital prints. If, you know, you have backup!

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