Tony Bisson

Will your family photos be around for future generations to see?

The invention of photography is only 169 years old. Where will your family images be after even half that much time has passed?

Are your digital photos going to outlive paper and the 8-track tape?

Every photo you have is a frozen moment in precious time that increases in value like a bank account. How safe are those images? People assume when an image is in electronic form that it will always be safe and never fade. The reality is almost certainly the opposite. Digital images on hard drives and CD’s are in fact more fragile then paper. Will a CD be readable in a decade? How about 100 years? Will the machinery exist to read them? Think of the last time you played a floppy disc or 8-track tape for the answer.

Historically the best preserved family photographs are in frames.

Look around your house or office. What are the oldest photos you can find? Which ones are best preserved? If you answered paper photographs in frames and albums you are almost certainly looking at the photos that will be around the longest after you are long gone from this world. The fact is that the oldest and best preserved photos from the past are in frames, archival boxes and albums.

Fire, careless storage and water damage are the most common destroyers of family photographs. This is why it is important to distribute multiple copies of your most precious photos and distribute them to family members far and wide.

All of the precious family images in this post are in frames and mats and safely on the walls of my office.

From top to bottom:
1. My grandparent’s wedding photo from the 1930’s.
2. A hand colored photo of my mother in her wedding dress.
3. My sister’s and I in college taken by a photographer friend in San Francisco where they live.
4. Ten years later in our hometown of Huntington Beach, CA.

I brought my Canon 5D pinhole conversion to the beach during my lunch break.

One of my earliest exposures to photography was making a camera out of an old shoe box at summer camp. We took paper negatives and developed them in a darkroom. The magic of seeing the image appear had a profound impact on me and led to a career in imaging.

Sunday April 27, was Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day. Photographers from around the world participate by making a pinhole camera and taking an image on that day for submission to the gallery on their site.

Every year my sister’s husband Adrian, participates. This year I followed his lead for the first time.

Here is my trusty Canon 5D converted to a pinhole camera for the event.

This image of my dog trotting called “Jasmine Jaunt” is the photo I submitted.

The whole process of building the camera and taking the photo took about 12 minutes using materials from my studio. I took an old Art Leather album page, cut to cover the lens area, and poked a tiny smooth hole which acts as the lens. Primitive I agree, but the soft images it makes are a lot of fun. Normally pinhole images require a long exposure but with a camera that goes to 3200 ISO, it possible to shoot at 1/160th in full sun.

My sister submitted this image made from a lens that was nothing more then the bottom of a soda can with a tiny hole in it.

There is some excellent artwork on that site. It is interesting just to see the locations from around the world. Film and paper negative pinhole photography is an exercise in careful content selection because you only get one shot and exposures can be several minutes long in some cases. A digital camera like mine makes short exposures possible for the first time which adds something and takes part of the fun away at the same time.

Grab a soda can a scissors and a safety pin and give pinhole photography a try.

Here is Adrian’s image.

I even found a wedding photo.

Mayday marks the unofficial start of the busy portrait season. Mothers Day is the third most popular holiday for portraits after Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Bisson Photography gift certificates are that mothers appreciate more then any other gift.

To celebrate Mothers day we are offering a $50 off our sitting fee or gift certificates. just mention this post at the time of booking to receive your discount.

I love the internet because you can find information just about anything. The menu bar in Safari keeps track of my last 10 searches. The list is proof that my mind is a randomizer.

Starting from the bottom up:

“sunchild jack johnson” I was wondering if Jack Johnson was the same pro surfer that played in a band I saw open for Ben Harper called Sunchild. It turns out no but there is a connection, they’re friends.

“marilyn monroe” The bathroom at my studio complex has a framed poster of her on the wall. I saw it and wondered how old she was when she died. I guessed 36 and she was in fact 36.

“youtube” I often enter url’s in Google to save time because it often shows a site map of cataloged pages.

“emergency seeds” I am putting together a survival kit because the news about worldwide food shortages GMO’s and declining bee populations makes me a little nervous. Turns out you can get a sealed can of quality garden seeds for $35-45 dollars that will last 4 years or longer.

“four hour work week” Kate is loving this book and wants me to read it too. I’ll wait until she’s finished and borrow her copy.

“joe barnett” I was looking for my friend’s blog because I met one of his couples at the bar in Bayside Restaurant the day before their wedding. I was looking for their blog entry to leave a comment. (It is not live yet.)

“in lies we trust” A youtube movie title pasted from a message board. Looked too grim, I have not watched it.

” How do you defeat that which has no life?” & “that which has no life” I was searching for the accuracy of a quote from South Park which was the content of my morning Twitter post. (Long story)

“make a movie” Sometimes I will use the field to enter a thought I am having even though I have no intention to search for it. This must partly be why Google is used to track human consciousness. I do want to make a modest online movie.

I recently had the pleasure of co-shooting a wedding with the lovely and talented Katie Jervis. My job there was to be the second camera person which is a lot less pressure then being the guy in charge like I am used to.

Second shooting is a nice change. I recommend that all photographers do it at least once per year to get a fresh outlook on their craft.

Some very exotic looking plants and animals can be seen in Hawaii. The location, Ko’olau Golf Club, is nestled up against the Koolau Mountains and offers spectacular views in every direction.

The bride’s family was nice enough to put us up in the beautiful Hilton Hawaiian Village in Waikiki. Kate and I had a great time there on the five days we were not shooting the wedding.

Ko’olau Golf Club is known as the world’s most difficult golf course. The groom and his brother were just two of the avid golfers at the wedding. Here they are getting some practice shots in to ease the tension before the wedding.

Japanese tourists make any shot cool!

I spent my pre-wedding time with the groomsmen. Here we are doing a Hawaiian version of the Beatles “Abby Road” cover.

The mountains make a perfect backdrop but the cloudy eastern side of Hawaii is like camera gymnastics because the light changes so often. I was constantly metering and updating my settings.

Kate set this shot up and I captured it from a different perspective.

The Bride’s mother was honoring the Hawaiian tradition of giving out of town guests a lei of orchid flowers. She would have to ambush some of the resistant ones who were not having it. Later it seemed like everyone was complying, at least over by the bar.