My reasonably new computer fills with photographs at an alarming speed, a problem entirely of my own making. I am incapable of letting go of images that might, one day, prove useful, those persistent just-in-case photographs. This January, I finally embarked on a ruthless process of selection: deciding what would remain and what would be erased. The urge to declutter was not purely practical; it was also, I suspect, influenced by a subtle yet pervasive social media logic that privileges only what is made now, as though relevance were bound to the present moment.
This raises an interesting question: do photographs have an expiry date? Do they lose their value simply because they were not taken yesterday? At times, it certainly feels that way. Social media feeds reward novelty and immediacy; cameras are replaced every few years; visual trends accelerate at dizzying speed. Even photographers seem inclined to apologise for images made last year, as though time itself had rendered them obsolete. And yet, I remain convinced that many photographs possess a quiet resilience - that they endure, regardless of fashion or technological progress.
As I worked through the archives on my hard drive, I was struck by how many images I had once dismissed but now found intriguing, even compelling. Was this the result of greater maturity, a change in aesthetic sensibility, or simply the benefit of distance - allowing me to see what had previously escaped my attention? Most likely, it was a combination of all three.
The exercise offered a gentle but important lesson: caution against deleting too quickly. At a time when external storage is affordable and abundant, there is little urgency to permanently discard photographs. What fails to resonate today may, with time and a fresh perspective, reveal unexpected depth. An image once rejected can return transformed, re-processed with new intent, and emerge not as a remnant of the past, but as a rediscovered gem. For nearly a decade, this photograph lay dormant on my hard drive, overlooked and silent, until now, when it resurfaces and unexpectedly makes me smile.
Beata Moore
Discover. Experience. Create.
