June 2008 Archives

Last year my wife and daughter went to California to visit friends and family (I went to Montana.) While they were there they searched for things to do and stumbled onto the Pacific Marine Mammal Center in Laguna Beach California. It is a small facility that is used to house and rehabilitate injured seals and sea lions so they can be released back into the wild.

This year we were all going back to California for vacation and we decided to visit the PMCC again.

In the last year they have grown and added several new enclosures. Sadly the population at the facility has grown as well. Many of the animals that are at the facility were either abandoned at a young age, were injured, or had forms of a cancer that are becoming common to the sea lions in the area.

In the Spring 2001 issue of The Newsletter of The Marine Mammal Center, Sue Spong reported that The Marine Mammal Center has found a high rate of cancer among California sea lions. 18% of those examined post-mortem were found to have cancer, most commonly in the urinary and genital tracts. This incredibly high rate of cancer could be due to high concentrations of PCBs and organochlorinated pesticides that run off of land and work its way up the food chain to the sea lion. While the California sea lion population is not endangered, this species could serve as a indicator species on the overall general health of the coastal food chains. [ sealwfy ]

We arrived just in time for the feeding and the volunteer was very eager to show us around. When we visited we saw elephant seals and harbor seals. The baby harbor seals were very young and needed to be taught how to catch fish in the water.

They also had some baby elephant seals that were a couple of months old and they already looked big. The adult male elephant seals can weigh up to 5,000 lbs.

It is a small facility and would make a good stop on your way to or from Laguna if you are visiting from out of town. They started to run summer day camps this year and my daughter was sad we don't have something like this near our home.

You can find out more about the PMMC and also make donations so they can continue the expansion via their website: www.pacificmmc.org

Here is a video of two of the young male elephant seals as they learn how show dominance (often called play fighting.)

Tomorrow night I will be attending a memorial service for a fellow photographer that passed away last week. He was a member of the National Zoo FONZ Photoclub and an active member in the Flickr community. About a month ago Takuma and I carpooled together to the Gettysburg Photowalk and it was a shock to learn about his death last week. He will be missed.

When someone that you know dies, you start to think about your own situation. My wife and I started working on the legal documents for an estate plan at the start of the year and it is about 90% done. It has been sitting there waiting to be completed and this was another reminder that we need to finish them. If you don't have any type of estate plan in place, I recommend that you work on that first before you even think of creating a Photography estate plan.

I also recently listened to George Jardine's podcast with Jay Maisel, Greg Gorman, and Seth Resnick (episode #42) and they briefly touched on some ideas of what happens to your photography when you die.

This got me to thinking that I need to create an estate plan for my photography. It maybe the case that when I die, nobody cares about my photography. However,  as a photographer that cares a great deal about my work, I feel it is important that when I leave this life my family would know where to find my work and also more importantly where to find what I consider is my best work. This is the same concept that Jay Maisel mentions in the podcast interview.

Well known photographers (the Jay Maisel's of the world) are represented by agencies and have staff with a knowledge base about the work and how to find it. These same people have worked with them for years and have come to understand their wants, needs and wishes. They understand the photographers' aesthetic and can continue to maintain these works after they are gone.

However, I would estimate that 99% of the photographers in the world don't have this type of support infrastructure. Basically we are sitting out there alone creating tons of work (some of it may actually be good work.) When we die, does it just sit there waiting for the eventual bit bucket or can it continue to live on for the people that care about it.

In the world of your finances, when you pass your family should know how to access all your various financial accounts.  Does your family know how to find all your photos? Have you taken the time to document where you are storing the gigabytes (or terabytes) of photo files you have created in your lifetime? Do they know how to find your best works? As I type this I know my wife wouldn't have a clue to where to find my photos.

After Takuma's death one of his co-workers contacted me to find out how to get the photos off his work laptop so he can burn them to a CD for his family. He was stumped since he had no idea how to open an NEF file (Nikon RAW file) or if that was really a photo file.

I can imagine this will become a common occurrence in the future. As we photographers have moved away from the photos and negatives in a shoebox to a world of bits and bytes our heirs may not know how to deal with our files. These digital files have become our legacy. When someone stops by to look at your computer in the future, if they can't open a file, does it just get trashed or forgotten?

What about another practical application? What if your wife wants to find the photos you took of your newborn child that were taken 10 years ago so she can make prints? Would she know how to find those photos and open them?

This brings me back to my need to create an estate plan for my photographs. I don't have an egotistical idea that my work will be valuable after my death by the world at large. However, it will be valuable on a personal level to my friends and family. The photography estate plan doesn't have to be a formal legal document. It just has to be a letter that documents the following:

• Where the photos are located.
• How to open the photo files.
• How to find photos in your catalog.
• How you mark, rank, or tag your best work.

This letter could be stored with your other estate planning documents. It could also be a READ ME file on your computer, or even a blog post. The key is whoever is in control of your estate needs to know where to find that document.

Since you are creating this document, you may also want to list where you have your photos posted on the internet (i.e. Flickr, iStockPhoto, etc.) and how to access those accounts as well.

Once you are done with the document, it would also be a good idea to walk through it with your family and show them where files are stored, how to open files, how to search, etc.

You should also review and update the document on a regular basis as well (maybe yearly.)

You never know when your time will come up and it is best to be prepared.