Prints Are Forever

Why You Should Print Your Photos

Recently catching up on Amazon?s Catastrophe a small and brilliant scene in the penultimate episode where sibling rivalry comes to an ugly head.  Sharon looks around her parents house and only sees framed images of her brother and his children – none of her family and her children.  She sees this a favoritism.  In face, as her brother points out, he sends the grandparents framed prints.  They don?t know what to do with jpeg attachments.  This is pretty accurate.  If you send someone a framed print, chances are they will put it somewhere they can enjoy it – and think of you.  If you send them a digital file – they may pull it up to show a friend over coffee but they are unlikely to print and frame it.

My heart breaks when I hear that people want ?just? the digitals. It?s the images that have value.  And they are worth printing.

Objects Have Aura

Our home has it?s own stashes of historic objects – historic to our lives. I am sure that your belongings include objects that speak to your life and hold memories for you.  

As a photographer I create visual histories.  As objects, photographs help you understand and know who you are and where you came from. Prints are a way to talk about family, relationships and memories that is away from screen time.  

They inherently hold a personal understanding and connect you to your place in history.  Physical objects are full of aura.  Holding them in your hands has emotional impact.  Printed photographs impart a connection to your history. An important and tangible connection.  We use our family photographs to reflect on and to understand ourselves.

Digital Obsolescence

Tech is rapidly created and just as rapidly cast aside as the newer, better and faster option comes along.  Sure, your images might be in an instagram feed or buried in a facebook album – but in all the noise that we create and share daily – the best images and the ones that you want to continue to interact with, can easily get lost.  

Don?t Print Everything  

You?ll be too overwhelmed. Curate the best.  Part of the editing process in our work as professional photographers iis culling the best from all the images we capture.  This process is worthwhile, and I recommend you do it with your family photographs – even if they are taken with your camera phone.  Choose the images you love the best, the ones that make you smile or cry or your heart swell.  Those are the ones to hold on to and to treasure Those are the ones you should print.

One of my new favorite midnight blogs to read is Chris Loves Julia.  They shared an elegant solution for creating a gallery of family photos that is kid friendly (safe and fingerprint resistant) and easily changed out as your family grows and changes.

You can DIY a wall like this up yourself – There?s a Home Depot post about it here. 

Both mention etsy shop Highland Hardware.  I?m tempted to add this project to the ever expanding list of things for which I will likely never have time.  But I do have the prints!  

How many pictures of your life and your family do you have?  How many are on a wall or on a shelf that you can interact with daily?  How does that help you connect to them?