Flash Forward

Over the past two months, I photographed in a few Toronto offices, from small to mid-sized. Here are a few random observations:

• Businesses seem to be much more paperless. I can recall when offices had entire walls, and even hallways, lined with filing cabinets.

• Fax machines are pretty much obsolete.

• Just over half of the offices I was in had their employees working on laptops. This may make sense in terms of cost and portability but one wonders about the health cost. Many employees’ necks and shoulders were hunched over as they were working on their laptops.

• No desktop computers meant that the office lacked the familiar sound of keyboard (and mouse) clicking. I guess this sound will disappear like that of a typewriter.

• One office was unusually quiet. It took a while to figure out why: there were no ringing telephones. Everyone in the office, except the receptionist, used cell phones (presumably set to vibrate).

• After delivering a CD of pictures to a customer, they called to say they couldn’t open the CD (which they specifically requested). Why not? Much to their (and my) surprise, they didn’t have an optical drive. Everyone in their office uses MacBook Air laptops which don’t have optical drives. The pictures were re-sent on a USB flash drive.

While many people might use CDs or DVDs only occasionally, these discs are important to photographers who use them to archive their work. It looks like photographers will, sooner or later, have to transfer their tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of pictures to flash memory. In the long run, this may be a good thing. But in the meantime, removing optical drives from computers seems like a step backwards. We’re going back to the future by having to use external optical drives and all the nuisance associated with them.

I spoke with two other photographers about the (impending) loss of optical drives. One, a wedding-portrait photographer, said she’s been delivering pictures on USB flash drives for over a year. A quick online search showed that there are several companies that sell customized USB sticks and cases made especially for wedding-portrait photographers. The second, a commercial photographer, said he’s been using USB sticks for about six months.

Compared to CD/DVD, copying files to a USB flash drive is faster and USB sticks can have a much larger capacity. But flash memory is less stable than any optical disc. Flash drive makers often claim a data retention life of “up to ten years”. Flash drives are even said to be less archival than newsprint.

My concern with USB sticks is that a customer may accidentally erase the image files on the drive without having first backed them up. Also, I’ve had customers lose CDs and DVDs, so I suspect the much smaller USB flash drives will be misplaced more easily.

I currently use Lightscribe discs to deliver digital files and, for customer convenience, a list of contents is added to the face of the disc. I used to include a jewel case insert on which was printed a list of contents and/or thumbnail images. But all this will be obsolete as there’s no way to add similar features to a USB flash drive.

Nevertheless, I’m currently shopping around for a local source of customized USB flash drives and cases.

Professional photographers have to keep up with the times. Continually buying new computers, software, cameras and lenses is just (an expensive) part of the job.

When you are through changing, you are through.  

– Bruce Barton, US author and politician (1886-1967).