Hindsight

Over the last few years I have begun to digitise my library of film shot photographs. A huge and laborious process that those born into the digital age do not need to contend with. Although since childhood I made notes in a log book when it was convenient (linked to a unique ID for each roll of film), there are a number of photos that are hard to date.

One can understand that during the age of film there was no way to record location information (GPS is relatively new), what is surprising is that cameras did not log the date and time on the negatives! I had not really paid attention to this until recently. Some film cameras did have date electronics built in that allowed you to select an option to imprint the date and time on each frame, but that spoiled the photo and was only really suited to specific situations, such as crime.

In a way, this matter is similar to the flooding here in the UK. Today the government are rightly being accused of doing too little too late, despite the years of warnings that climate change (no matter how caused) would lead to an increase in precipitation or 'rain' as we Brits call it and have too much of even without climate change!

We are taught to think of the future when it comes to money. "Save for a rainy day." "Put a bit aside for X." Etc. Yet for most other matters, humanity seems to think far too short term, and then pay the price later. In my case, lack of the obvious concept of embedding a cheap electronic circuit in every camera and date stamping the negatives means most of us who started out in photography prior to digital now have a lot of work on our hands!

Fight back club: Plan ahead.