What to do with all my stuff?

[labyrinth photo]

i think the vivian maier story should be an inspiration to many amateur photographers in as much that anybody's photographs can be rediscovered and tell thousands of stories to a new generation. maybe through this forum you could find someone who you could pass your legacy onto, or potentially a local museum/institution or school/college.

[Prof_Pixel]

brass majestic,

Since you live in Michigan, why not donate your photo collection to the The Bentley Historical Museum at the University of Michigan? http://bentley.umich.edu/ They have many of my images (and some that my father took as well).

[MartinP]

The value and "accessibility" of the collection/filing-boxes/heap-in-the-attic would be much improved with the who-when-where-what-why notes for every neg-sheet (and I am sure that was in the wrong order).

There have been people mentioned in the local press, with 'probably' useful collections, who have been turned down by local museums due to the huge amount of work needed in deciphering and cataloguing the material - especially in the present economic climate that cannot possibly be done. If the material is mostly local in nature then the content is probably already covered. Sad but true.

On the other hand, you could also make a side collection of stuff which is special in some way, and that would most likely also be more practical to catalogue yourself . . . even to exhibit it while you still can??

[Alan Klein]

When you die, your wife's next husband will throw it all out.

Sooo... Now is the time to give it away. Frame the best and give them to friends and family members. You will get great joy from their smiles. When you visit them, you might see those pictures hanging on their walls. They will become the caretakers of your work. You will make others happy and become happier yourself.

Otherwise it's just vanity.

[Rafal Lukawiecki]

Brass Majestic, what you wrote, you wrote so beautifully, but I can't help feeling sadness.

[Mustafa Umut Sarac]

I dont care about my photograph stuff because I did not care about them while shooting and they are not art. I am trying to figure out someting which is very useful to public , may be a product , software , etc. I cant compete with people who loads hundreds of millions pictures a day to internet , equivalent amount of video,email,book,music.

[clayne]

A few years ago I read in the local paper about the case of a Photographer from The West Midlands in the UK. His hobby was to walk the industrial canals from about the time of WW2 until about the 1980s. He used glass plates for most of this time - and recorded the history of the canals and their decline as far as industry and commerce was concerned. A few prints survive of the people and places, long gone, that he photographed. The canal heritage people heard about him and tried to track him down. He had recently died - and they managed to contact his widow about 3 weeks after she had dumped his entire life's work at the Council tip.

Jesus. Who does this kind of stuff? Surely she would have taken note of the fact that maybe this guy spent a lot of time on that stuff?

[Prof_Pixel]

I dont care about my photograph stuff because I did not care about them while shooting and they are not art.

Historians in the future won't be looking for art - they will be looking for images that document the way things were and the way people lived in the past. It's impossible for us today, to know what historians in the future will think is important.

[jp498]

A big part of the reason for my photography is so I can appreciate and perceive the world around me in a more thorough way. That's unrelated to what happens to my stuff when I die.

If you have a chance to teach other people photography stuff , or other things of mutual interest and importance, that's going to outlast you as well.

The actual photo materials could go up in a fire at any moment before you die. It would be rewarding to see them remain useful to someone for a long time, but when you're dead, it won't be a concern. I'm young and would accept the material of a local artist for a combination of local history and artistic merit.

[Old-N-Feeble]

I never had a large body of work because I essentially gave up photography at age 22. During moves, floods, a divorce, etc. it's all gone. I wish I still had some of my better work but it just isn't so.

Make a decision of what you want done, talk to your family about it and put it in your will. Keep producing while you still can. Get those images up off the floor.