Reminiscing and Remembering
My uncle passed away recently so this morning my mom and two aunts were going through old pictures looking for some to send to his kids and reminiscing about their childhoods and family vacations. Then my mom said, “I just feel bad for all the kids whose baby pictures are all on someone’s phone.” And I said, “yeah, that’s why I sell actual photos now instead of prints.” Up until a few years ago, that’s what everyone did. When I got my senior pictures done in 2004, we wouldn’t have even known what to do with digital images. Where do we print them? Are they going to look nice? What size do we get? Thankfully, we just picked the ones we wanted and the photographer essentially told us what to order. We ended up going back to that photographer three more times because we enjoyed the experience so much. Every session we did was probably close to $2,000 and that was almost 20 years ago! But one of my very favorite pictures of me and my mom are from one of those sessions and I still have it on my family photo wall. Truth be told, we threw away probably 90% of the photos we looked through because they’re terrible. They’re yellow, out of focus, badly lit, only one person’s eyes are open. But the professional ones we got done? Those are all perfect. Stunning color, crisp, flawlessly composed and lit.
Digitals Get Lost
How many times have you crashed your laptop and thought Oh no, my photos! When I lived in New Zealand for a year I tried to take a picture every day. We went to Australia and Fiji and all over New Zealand and I took probably 5000 pictures that year. Literally the day I got back to the states, my friend picked up my suitcase that wasn’t zipped and my laptop fell on a hardwood floor. You guessed it, I lost all those photos. Every single one. I have probably 50 that I had printed on my tiny Canon single image printer and hung up in my room, but that was it. Ten years later it still comes up—remember those colorful temples in Fiji… Remember that opal mine in Australia that sparkled even in the dark… Remember when we went to the glacier and we took that picture even though we were all soaking wet? Great memories, but no photos to look at or show anyone who asks. It’s a bummer.
And did you know digital files degrade over time? The more you open and resave digital files, the more minute data is lost because no conversion alghorithm is 100% perfect yet. Have you ever tried to find a photo on Facebook from your freshman year in college? It’s a mess. The only photos I look at from college are the ones I printed and put in a giant frame because digging through the 3000 tagged photos of me on Facebook are gonna be a hard pass. They’re all on CDs somewhere, but does anyone still have a CD drive? I don’t. How long until USB drives aren’t the standard anymore and we have to take them to an expert and there’s only one in town?
Prints Not Pixels
So, now I have a whole wall in our living room that’s just professional photos our family and I look at them every day. I want all my clients to be able to enjoy the memories of their photographs. That’s another reason I try to make your session fun and stress free. I’d rather an imperfect photo that makes you remember why you were laughing than a perfectly posed one where everyone is faking a smile. Allow me to create cherished heirlooms for your family that can be passed down, not in old cardboard boxes but in quality, protective frames and products. Treasure your family history not just for you, but for your children and grandchildren and even great grandchildren. Let’s make some memories! My friend Vanessa has a great blog about why prints are better than digitals, too. Check it out here!
