FOR several years now I have travelled with a digital camera which I use liberally to capture commercial, social and recreational scenes. So my trip reports are no longer constrained by the limitations of verbiage, they can be alive with pictographic content. Recommendations for venues can be supported by photographic evidence, while commemorative snaps of gatherings can be distributed with ease. Best of all, I don't have to wait for all that wet-processing time associated with film. This is instant gratification that is convenient and powerful.

I have built a huge library of digital pictures spanning hi-tech installations, offices, restaurants, mountain and forest views, my family and friends in various locations around the word. This collection is now a significant proportion of my entire picture library, which is dominated by 35mm slides and paper prints. A big difference, however, is their accessibility.

While my 40-year collection of prints and slides is stored in rarely visited albums - many in the attic - my electronic collection is accessed continuously. Visitors to my home and office are now treated to a sample of these through an active picture frame. An LCD display rolls one image after another continuously, 24 hours a day. I also carry a large collection on my laptop as a screensaver. While they don't make a hotel room into a home from home, they do help.

The most-asked question about my electronic collection is: what do you print your photographs on? My answer is always: I don't! But why would you ever want photos on paper? Just because that was the only thing that could be done up to 10 years ago it is no reason to continue the practice. It is both expensive and inconvenient, as well as, dare I say it, anti-green.

So what happens next? Soon I have to upgrade my digital camera. It is big and power-hungry, and it lacks the resolution of modern models. But there is also a large selection of new video cameras with a "stills" option of a similar size to my old digital camera.

On the one hand I can now have another compact item of belt-wear for stills only, and on the other I can continue carrying shoulder-wear with a full movie capability. Moreover, with DVD burners coming available I will soon have the means to carry all my stills collection easily, plus hours of movies. And all at reasonably low cost - what a choice.

In all of this the biggest single cost is not the hardware. It is going to be the process of scanning in all my old 35mm and paper prints, and converting all my old analogue movies. Once that is in digital form, the rest of what I want to do in the future, no matter what the technology changes, is both easy and low-cost. So my decision is going to be based on time - my time - and effort, and not the cost of the hardware. So I think I may buy both.

It is always interesting to think of what triggers us to make technology decisions. In this case it was an acquaintance whose house was burnt down to the foundations with the total loss of all the family photographs. Wedding, birthdays, Christmases, holidays, children and friends, all gone forever. Mine are all going on several servers with back-up copies burnt on CD.

Peter Cochrane holds the Collier Chair for the Public Understanding of Science & Technology at the University of Bristol. His home page is:
http://cochrane.org.uk