By MidgePhoto, 1621369113
There was a discussion of what people wanted to happen to their images when they died. It overlapped into what PP or other systems holding them might choose or be asked to do.
There is quite a range of desires. Authors are perhaps more predictable, although some have had their unpublished work burned who might have preferred not, and, I hope vice versa.
Terminal Disposal and Will
Appointing a photographic executor is an option you might consider.
They are not necessarily the same person as the overall executor of your Will.
Whether their priority task is to ensure no survivors are upset, to maximise income for your great-grandchildren or to ensure the selected museum gives proper prominence to your body of work only alters who it is and their instructions.
Authors
Authors routinely appoint a literary executor, usually someone who is involved with writing or publishing. People with large collections of books may indicate a university department who are to have first pick and dispose of some of them. It seems reasonable to point a large collection of images at someone who won't be lost.
But who?
If you are in a camera club, or know people in one then a volunteer or the club archivist might be willing. Local museums or galleries might take an interest, but would probably prefer to have a selected set handed on to them. Mundane images of the local area and people of these times will probably be of some interest in future times. The Internet Archive accept sets of images.
Distributing images to the models in them is worth thinking about, although it may be a task that won't get completed as not all may be found.
Preparation
Now might be a good time to discard some images which frankly are never going to be useful, and that leaves a reduced effort.
If your archive is encrypted, make sure the encryption keys can be passed on. You might choose to encrypt the photographs with a different key than the household accounts.
Appointment
Identify someone suitable, and, preferably, ask them. Ditto for a deputy. You are probably all in a similar state of age, health and so on, perhaps identify a second deputy. If the executor you chose is a photographer then perhaps you could daisy chain - that he lays the completion of the duty on his photographic executor. Perhaps you will reciprocate, each being the selected executor for the other, a tontine of sorts.
Add it to your will. Perhaps you'll have your will checked, updated and rewritten in which case add it to the tasks for whoever writes that. Perhaps you'll just write a codicil, a brief handwritten or witnessed note to add to your will. This is not legal advice.
Just Photographers?
The photographers on here are on average old and decrepit, but this may apply to other members. Painters etc of course. If a model has images with suitable copyright, they may have value, or might potentially trouble survivors, and they may wish to arrange for action. Probably this isn't a rush for models.
[1] Just look it up. GoT.
