The Everlasting Image

The issue of estate planning in photography is big one. What is the value of the images from an "unknown" photographer versus someone who is known? Is the value purely monetary or is there a societal/historical value also which supercedes any monetary value? Where and how will the photo library be stored and managed? What is included, i.e. prints, negatives, slides, business papers, correspondence, etc.?

I talked with Al Weber a couple years ago regarding his efforts to educate photographers about archiving their images rather than destroying them or giving them up to family members who may not know their significance or understand their value either monetary or historical. Al Weber, who was a friend of Ansel Adams and a well-known photographer in his own right, believes it is extremely important to make sure the image collections of photographers are preserved for the future. He started a collections program at the University of California Santa Cruz because a collection of photographs by a friend of his (I can't remember who now) was going to be lost through neglect by family members who didn't know what they had.

"Art is an important form of communication. If work is lost, or locked away where it can't be experienced by new generations, we break an essential historic link. " -- Al Weber

View info on the UCSC program Here and Here for the special collections at UCSC.

For some interesting reading, check out Al's Newsletter.

Al is working primarily with UCSC, but is a voice for preservation of collections across the U.S., particularly at Universities that have the facilities to properly store and manage collections and that are public institutions so the works are accessible.

I get the impression that many stock photographers view their work as "just a job" and are not necessarily looking at their body of work as a record of history that is likely beneficial in some way to future generations. Photographers are recorders of history, regardless of the subject matter or method of capture. Think of hand-written letters from Abraham Lincoln or the message written in 1913 on a postcard found in an antique store, Both of historical value, one saved for posterity, the other basically discarded to the fates. Of course, not every image in a photographer's library is necessarily required to be preserved, but I'm not sure we as individuals are able to clearly make that choice since we look at what we create with different eyes.

To discard an image library, I think, is like burning a book when you finish reading it. Especially in the Digital Age when images are so easily discarded at time of capture or lost through mismanagement or accident, historical images (or I should say "not yet historical" or "potentially historically important") are being lost at an alarming rate. There have been several articles and papers written on this topic over the past few years.

So, I would urge photographers to think about their collections in this way rather than in the traditionally commercial mindset we tend to go to when talking about estate planning. I think advice to destroy collections to avoid taxes is irresponsible. There are other ways to avoid taxes if you would only do the research.