The Best Way to Store and Preserve Digital Photos? Your Family Memories May Be at Risk

I have an old photo album full of Polaroid Swinger pictures. No, the pictures aren't risqué but rather taken with a camera with that moniker, named so because you could attach it to your wrist using the strap and let it swing freely by your side. It was an "instant" camera, which meant that you didn't have to wait several days for the film to be developed. The Swinger was actually a smaller version of the Polaroid folding camera, which took larger prints. Both of them only offered black and white film when they first started out. The simplicity and convenience ended however, after you snapped the shot. Right after taking the picture you had to get out your watch and time it to the second before you peeled off the covering of the film. Pulling the film out of the camera broke open a packet of developing chemicals, and you could ruin your picture if you waited too long or jumped the gun and peeled too soon. Then came the messy process of spreading this thick, noxious smelling preservative over the picture. If any of it got on you or your clothes, it wasn't easy to get off.

Now, some thirty years later when I look at the album of old photographs, I can see why it was important to use the preservatives. All the areas of the photos that I missed with the glue are now gone, faded and disappeared over time.

Then when the video age was upon us and "America's Funniest Home Videos" ruled the airwaves, I went out and bought a new video camera. It was expensive and sort of a Christmas gift from my wife and me. I remember staying up all of Christmas Eve playing with it and learning how it worked. I soon became a video fanatic. I even took a course at the local college. I went back and filmed a documentary of the old neighborhood using special effects and production values. I even filmed training tapes for my boss at work. It also became my job to become the family archivist. I taped a couple of weddings. I also bought a macro lens and went through a lot of the family albums, painstakingly focusing on each photograph to preserve it on videotape. I even did interviews with my mother and my older brother, (now both deceased).