I’m seriously considering throwing out all my photo negatives – have I lost my mind?

We all have too much stuff, accumulated over a lifetime of image taking and making. Old laptops, scanners, printers, card readers, software CDs that we paid so much for originally that we never threw them out, despite their redundancy… And that’s only detritus related to the early days of shooting digitally – for me the late 1990s and early 2000s.

In addition to such clutter, I recently rediscovered a box full of print wallets, each with their accompanying film negative strips.

In the days before storing every shot on multi-terabyte hard drives, keeping said strips was my way of ‘backing up’ images – while also providing a way to replace prints should they ever get damaged, or a friend or family member wanted their own as a memento.

What also appeals is the physical tangibility and permanence of neg, as opposed to the possible impermanence of a digital image file.

Truth is, though, I’m unlikely to ever make additional prints. But still, the reassurance that I still have the original negatives if needed somehow helps me sleep at night.

An incident recently had me questioning whether this is more of a mental than a practical thing, however. My wife had deposited a bag of her own film negatives by the back door – which in our house is code for something that needs to be chucked out. “Don’t you want to keep these?” I asked. “Why?” came the reply. “Well, in case you ever need them?”

My wife reasoned that she never looked at the photos printed from the negatives. So why, when we already had too much clutter in the house, should she need to keep the negatives, too?

Naturally, this got me questioning whether I should divest myself of my own negatives. Maybe holding on to the past stops us from moving forward? Perhaps getting rid of them would not just help create more physical space, but free up more mental space with it?

The process of performing something of a ‘life edit’ opened myself up to fresh possibilities. Was I being purely sentimental, not practical, in holding onto something I’d all but forgotten existed in the first place?

It’s not like they’re negatives shot by Magnum agency photographers, and so of cultural and socio-political significance. They’re just shots of myself and friends, holidays with exes. Most of those depicted have already faded into the past – and I have the prints anyway if I want to gaze back dewy-eyed at my youth without needing to plug in a lightbox.

At the time of writing I haven’t chucked or recycled my negatives yet, but storage issues and possible irrelevance certainly have me considering it. Ultimately, it appears I’m locked in the age-old tussle between head and heart – and whichever wins will snatch victory on a whim.

Have you got boxes of negs? Are you holding onto them or letting them go? I'd love to know in the comments – it might even help me decide what to do.

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