I am currently revising my will and trying to figure out what to do with all my oodles of images after I die. Right now, I plan to have any royalties from stock sales donated to a charity of my choice and my image collection donated to somewhere that could make good use of them - something like Arkive, VIREO, environmental and wildlife related charities etc.

But, given that the world is overrun with oodles of images better than mine, what do I do with them if none of these organizations are interested in accepting them? I would hate to think that at least some of them were not being put to some useful purpose after I am gone.

What are other people doing/planning in this regard?

Thanks,
Roberta Olenick
Vancouver, British Columbia
www.neverspook.com

This topic does come up here time and again, it points out one reason why photographers need to enjoy the shooting and image making WHEN they are doing it. I assume you have no children or don't trust them with the responsibility.
My plan is to donate my work to the National Archives or the largest, best funded group around at the time of my exit. The cruel reality is that as you said, every species has now been photographed and the quality of the work available is very high. Someone should run contests organized by species (my what a good idea).

Yes, you are correct, I have no kids to leave my images to.
Let me know when you organize those species-specific contests

I indirectly inherited sound recordings of birds that a person had dedicated his life to capturing. They had sat in a storage box for years. Fortunately there was some documentation of where and when and I was able to find a researcher at Cornell that was happy for them. I think the reality for most of our images is that they will expire shortly after we do and as other have said the world has no need of another picture of Oxbow Bend or a Bald Eagle so I think you should try to do some good with them now when they have more value. I do not mean monetary value.

I do do as much good with them now as I can and donate use to a variety of environmental and wildlife protection groups. But I need to instruct the executor of my will what to do with my images and I can't see just telling him to trash the slides and erase the hard drives.

Your dilemna is one we all face.

In the old days every family had a shoe box full of images that the family would go through especially on Sunday or some family holiday.

Your question challenges all of us in a similar situation. My answer is that we should organize and categorize our best work and make books of our best images to be left behind so that the family will have something to enjoy and remember us by.

All it takes is one glance at your portfolio to make me very optimistic that someone out there would take care of your excellent work.

I strongly suggest having your will worked on by an estates lawyer who has significant experience working with intellectual property. You live in a city of artists and writers, so there will inevitably be good people around. I suggest this because you should consider what to do with the media on which your photos reside and the copyright associated with them as separate but related issues. If you're a member of a professional association like CARFAC or CAPIC, they might be able to provide a recommendation.

An environmental non-profit would likely find a bequest most attractive if they not only get possession of the media containing your photos, but have the rights to them assigned as well. As you know, they're always under-resourced and overworked, and will be most likely to take on the labour and responsibility of caring for a substantial image archive if they can actually use the images without needing to clear them with your stock agency or estate. The major attraction of your archive for many of them will be the potential for use of your images in their promotional/educational/fundraising campaigns, so the more they can do, the happier they'll be.

If the rights must reside with your estate, you might have better luck with a donation to an academic library/archives, since they're typically better equipped to do long haul archiving and preservation without needing to publish their holdings themselves or earn revenue from licensing them. The more contextual information you have about your images that would make them of value to researchers (site, date, species checklists for those dates, notebooks, etc), the more likely they are to say yes.

Either way, there *may* be potential income tax benefits that would arise from making a partial donation to a Canadian institution while you're still alive. The writers and publishers that I've worked with do this when donating archives to academic institutions all the time, while retaining all intellectual property rights to the donated material. Again, talking to a knowledgeable lawyer will get you more conclusive information.

I am currently organizing my images and I have been thinking of doing just that. Each year produce a hardback photo book of "The best of.... " and maybe tell a little story with each image. Worse case scenario... I can look at them when I am too old to hike the trails.

Thanks everyone. A book is a nice idea for family consumption but that is not what I am seeking. More along the lines of Jack Illingworth's comments. Thanks for that, Jack. Lots of good suggestions there (and thanks also for your kind comments on my work. I hadn't thought to make it plain in my will that the charity could retain all rights.

Roberta

This is a great discussion.

I most likely will not die anytime soon, as I'm young and healthy, but you never know, so its good to ponder. I haven't really thought too much about this, but what I have been thinking about lately is my business model and motivations for photography. I have pretty much determined that the purpose of my images is in all ways superior to any profit made from them. So for me, the question of what to do with them when I die is very much influenced by what to do with them while I'm alive. Frankly, they need to be seen. So perhaps when deciding what is to happen to your image collection when you are no longer around to manage it should influence what you do with them before that time comes.

One of the best things you could probably do is take a younger photographer under your wing and mentor them, then leave your image collection to them when you die if you can't get a gallery or stock agency to take over. I would probably go that route, because if I feel I have really good stuff that is worth seeing, then I want someone to market that stuff. I'm trying to do more of my work to promote conservation, environmental stewardship, and social justice, so for me, getting the message out is important. I also love mentoring and teaching others, so building that relationship, and then leaving my images to someone I trust who will either donate proceeds to charity or financially benefit from my images so that he or she can continue to do their own work with a mission similar to mine, is probably the best end result I can think of.