The lesson from Costco’s photo lab
Mar 3, 2019
Missy Mwac
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I received a letter from Costco that the location I frequent for my 8lbs of ground beef and jumbo bottle of vodka is closing their photo department.
Why?
Because in spite of more pictures being taken now than in any time in the history of photography, people are simply not printing their snapshots and, because of this rapid decline in printing volume, it makes no financial sense to keep the photo department open.
And after reading this letter, I have one thing to say:
People…WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?
Listen, I’ve tried being nice. I have. I’ve tried the cute graphics and the thought-provoking posts, but now, I am going to sit you down to have a come to Jesus moment regarding your memories.
Folks, you are ‘effing losing them. Daily. By the second, even.
Now, I’m not even talking about professional photos; no, I’m talking about all the day to day memories you take courtesy of your mobile device. The thousands of photos you have on your phone right now, people:
the ballet recital
the trip to the park
the vacation
the ordinary, run-of-the-mill wonderful events that make up a life, events that you whip out your phone to remember
Events that the minute your phone crashes, or falls into the toilet, you will no longer have.
“But I back up to the cloud,” you say. “My pictures are safe,” you say.
People, repeat after me: “There is no cloud.” You are simply backing photos up to another computer somewhere. And while you may have access to them, will your kids? Or their kids? Or their kids?
Let me answer that for you…NO. No, they won’t, which means all of those precious day-to-day images will be lost for future generations because you didn’t take an hour to send them off to be printed onto paper.
Again…WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?
Are these images not important enough to print? Are they throw-away memories?
I tell you true from the bottom of my heart, the snapshots you have today will be MORE important later. But, later, well, you won’t have them. 30 years from now, when you are searching for that photo of your dad at his birthday or your daughter in her kindergarten play, you won’t have it.
And when you are gone and your kids are searching for family pictures, what will they find? A link to an online gallery? An obsolete hard drive?
Or boxes and albums full of wonderful printed photos, photos they will hold in their hands and pass around the table and treasure more than gold.
If you think photos are important now, wait until they are all you have left. ‘Cause the true value of a photo is only understood years after it is taken.
I beg you…PRINT WHAT YOU WANT TO PRESERVE. Don’t let your memories die when your phone does. xoxo
About the Author
Missy Mwac is a photographer/eater of bacon/drinker of vodka and a guide through the murky waters of professional photography. You can follow her social media links here: Facebook, Tumblr. This article was also published here and shared with permission
We love it when our readers get in touch with us to share their stories. This article was contributed to DIYP by a member of our community. If you would like to contribute an article, please contact us here.
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21 responses to “The lesson from Costco’s photo lab”
You are correct of course. I can scan the pages of a book printed in the 1700s or that portrait of my great-aunt taken in 1901 because they are well preserved on mediums that deteriorate very, very slowly. The same can’t be said for those reports that I wrote using Lotus Manuscript and saved on 3.5 inch diskettes. I wonder if the problem relates to the medium and the sheer number of digital images. For many folks, a 36-exposure film inserted in the camera for a Christmas party might still be there at Easter. Scarcity gave each exposure a value that umpteen digital images of the same subject don’t have.
You clearly missed the point.
You don’t understand much about servers and data backup do you?
I’m thinking you’re the one who missed the point. How many cloud based photo services have come and gone in the last ten years? Even if the cloud service survives will the family know where to look after her death? Will they have an account name and password? Will they have access to the secondary devices when the account requires 2 factor authentication to sign in? All this becomes moot when you have printed copies of your memories.
Yes and they don’t tell you?
They just pull the plug and poof you lost your photos?
Do you know how much redundancy there is on those servers from Google, Amazon, IBM?
Probably not.
Do you know they are deployed in different locations across the country?
Probably not.
Have you worked in a computer/server room, do you know what the methodologies are they used in those infrastructures?
Probably not.
But you are right, my dear troll, I missed the point and you know it all. As all the trolls.
You’ve still missed the point. It’s not about redundancy, it’s about access. The photos could be redundantly stored on 500,000 servers but if no one knows how to access them they’re as good as lost.
What a dick you are. Totally ignorant of the point of the article and just babbling techtalk. Go fug a dog.
No one will force you to make prints. Do as you like. Internet is as impermanent as it gets. Just pray the electric stays on.
I have photo books made with My Publisher … very nice and affordable. Also … Walmart and Walgreens probably use the same printers as the one in question. It is their loss not yours.
Photo prints, books, it is all good. Just get something that does not fade away fast.
D.D. Teoli Jr. A. C.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/612d16339f2c942ee53ed740a08d8e900180a9751d9f0cf6914d724656506424.jpg
Yes indeed. I forgot My Publisher is now by Shutterfly. You can’t beat the price of photo books there and the pics in the book printed well. I like photo books … though as a child I enjoyed going through my mother’s shoe box of black and white pics. :)
“People, repeat after me: “There is no cloud.” You are simply backing photos up to another computer somewhere. And while you may have access to them, will your kids? Or their kids? Or their kids?”
Who wants to be my digital archivist? Looking for support of maintaining my family photos for generation and generations! ;)
Got something interesting? Put it on the Internet Archive. Better than nothing. Maybe someone else will download and save it.
Print Sheeple! Print Sheeple! Print Sheeple! Print Sheeple!
Great article. Very well said, and thank you for a clear and intelligent perspective on this.
OK, I’ll bite… Yes, most are throw-away images. How about just, ahem, remembering the moment? Do we really have to document everything in life up to, but not excluding, every meal?
Well, 100 years from now it is all treasure. See how Vivian Maier is worshiped for her snapshots?
D.D. Teoli Jr. A.C.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6fa6b4855a67eae97caef309bde37fa9a3b96cb86007d18f84f089d5fd833003.jpg
You’re absolutely correct. There is something about holding a photo in your hand as opposed to a digital display. It’s good to have both I guess.
.
.
Sure, no argument.
The closest the digital photog can get is to make letter size master prints of their important photos. A hi-res scan can recover +/- 90% from it if the digital files are lost.
Computer password…phone password…hard drive password, no one can get in and they trash the useless tech paperweights. Cloud is deleted after 30 days in arrears…website gone after yearly bill in arrears…all your digital files go poof!
D.D. Teoli Jr. A.C.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4ea52bcb0fcbaa65023f05f599ee92257b2eaef7df501a3afc5f68571e6f20ae.jpg
Costco has a good value for money Print Lab. It will be sad if they close down. The best way to store photos for nostalgia is by printing them. When you are gone no is going to look into your DVDs, Hard Drives, Thumb Drives etc. It is as good as if you never saved them when you were an alive Photographer.
Here is my simple logic: I produce 60 % scrap – never stored – deleted + 22 % amateur type Snapshot photos – saved in digital form + 18 % Keepers – roughly 600 photos every year. Out of this 600 I will have about 125 GRANDES – absolutely stunning photos. I will print these 125 GRANDES. All the Keepers will be backed up in 3-locations.
So Costco please don’t close down.
Re: Costco printing closing down. They were going to close down the photo printing at our local Costco, but enough people complained that they kept it open (and is still open 2 years later).
to the point of the article: My grandson loves to hold a photo (especially if it’s of him); he’ll run his finger over the surface as he stares at it. You can’t do that with a screen!
There is no cloud. There is no cloud. And while we’re at it, don’t forget to write on the back with a pen who and when and where.