Every client I meet whether it’s for a wedding, a family portrait session, or even senior pictures, I always talk about the reasons why we are shooting the photos, the end result. I want to actively discuss the purpose of why we are investing the time and money into making these photos together. I pull out my leather albums, describe BIG images, and talk about framing services, and outfits. But we don’t talk about the REAL reasons, and I think it’s time we did.
When I urge you to print your photos, it’s not a sales pitch, it’s a crusade. Like a lot of things in life, the power of pictures is not something we often appreciate until it’s gone.
Right now, in the age of instagram, snap chat, and smart phones – we are snapping selfies and photographing more of life than ever, but if the power went out tomorrow and didn’t come back on, the world would not know we had existed. We photograph our food, our cups of coffee, our morning commute, our nights out with our friends because we “gotta do it for the ‘gram!” What we are forgetting to do is to save our memories for ourselves. We are all the photographic anthropologists of our own life story. No one is going to keep it safe and tell it for you. Printed photographs are the messages we leave for the future about the past.
Will your children remember the trip to Disney you saved two years for? When they grow up and look in the mirror, will they know if they looked like their great grandma? How often do you scroll through your facebook posts from 5 years ago? If you’re already not doing it now, what are the chances that your children will scroll back 20 or 30 years to see what their family was like?
When my sister got married, we assembled some photos of loved ones that have passed away for a memory table. We also asked all the guests who were married couples to send us a photo of them on their own wedding day so we could display it over the place cards. Throughout the process, I was struck by how many people have trouble finding something to send (myself included). I was also warmed by the photos (that people who have photos) sent and the fact that I could hear them smiling when I read their email. I know that locating that photo, and taking a minute to think back brought a smile to their face as well.
If finding a treasured photo makes us smile, then not finding one is truly the worst.
In July 2015, we had to say goodbye to our dog, Smokey after 14 years of love and loyalty. The day after she was gone, I laid in bed with tears streaming down my face and a broken heart and frantically scrolled through my instagram feed looking for her. I knew I could never hold her paw again, I would never touch her fur and in that moment, all I wanted was to see her in a photo so she wasn’t really gone. But there were no photos. And I cursed myself. WHAT HAD I BEEN DOING the past year?? WHAT? There were photos of milkshakes, photos of sunsets, photos of chicken I made for dinner and scenes from vacations, but no photos of her. I raged at myself. WHAT WAS SO IMPORTANT that I spent all that time not photographing someone I loved so much. ME! An actual photographer! Someone with all the resources in the world and zero excuses! I had done nothing. I dimly recall in all those moments of opportunity that it had occured to me to photograph her that it would be sad. It would be uncomfortable to take photos of her looking older, seeing the grey around her nose and her ear that drooped a little compared to her younger days. Photographing her would make it real. It would force me to look at her and know that she wouldn’t be with us forever, so I showered her with love and avoided taking her picture. I tried to spare myself the sadness of confronting the truth. I wish I had known that this would be so much worse. That the day after she was gone my sister and I would scramble and scroll through every text message over 3 years that our phones could call up to collect and send to each other every photo we had taken of her. That we would sob for hours because the only video of her barking was on a flip phone from seven years ago that we couldn’t charge anymore. I wish I had known how important it was for me to do my job.
I know right now you’re thinking of someone or something you love so much it hurts to love it that much.
Right now, today, print your photos. Print your photos. Print your photos. Print.Your. Photos.
And if you don’t have the photos to print that you’re going to want to remember – call me before it’s too late. I want to help.
P.S. This is separate blog post (coming soon!) but there are other places to print besides the big box retail stores and the kiosk at your local pharmacy – check out Mpix.com !
