You may be wondering, “Do people really need to PRINT their photos anymore???”.
That is a GREAT question!
And I totally get it~these days we live in the virtual world as much or more than in our real world. We want our pictures as digital images so we can post them online. We want to share them on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. We want to email them to Grandma and have them downloaded onto our phones to look at and show people.
I get it.
BUT. But. I also get the feeling of awe and that swelling feeling of love and pride when I see my family’s faces on a big canvas hanging on my wall. Or a print of them in a gorgeous frame. There is an almost tangible joy when our kids see themselves IN PRINT on the wall or in an album. When you see them snuggled up on the couch together pouring over their albums. Sigh. It’s a beautiful sight!
Not to discount the value of having images online. My kids also love reading through my blog and reading the stories that go along with the photos. It’s a lot of fun to be able to share photos instantly with our friends and family and have them “like” our pictures. There is value in that and a certain pleasure that comes from it.
So, I guess what I am recommending is that we make room for both. I have heard of COUNTLESS accounts of people who get their images on a disc after their photo session and have the best intentions of printing them, hanging them on the wall in a fantastic display for all to see, printing a fun album that their family can cuddle up with–and guess what actually happens. About 95% of the time, those images NEVER LEAVE THE DISC. They never make it onto the canvas on the wall. They may make it onto Facebook or Instagram, but they never get the chance to enhance our lives by being a part of our home.
That is my fear. It’s my fear because I have done it myself. Those baby pictures I had taken that I LOVE, are somewhere on a disc. I MEANT to print them, but you know how it is after you have a baby. A good friend of mine has been married for over 10 years and has NEVER printed her wedding photos!! To say she regrets it is an understatement. But now she has to track down the negatives from her photographer, and go through all of the trouble of buying and choosing her photos when it could have been done so long ago. One of my biggest regrets from my own wedding was not buying the gorgeous professional album the photographer suggested I buy to put my wedding photos in. My wedding pictures sat for AGES until I finally made an album myself, and although I do love it, I could have saved myself hours upon hours of creating it, and added years where my kids and I could have enjoyed those photos together. Live and learn, right?
So when you have your next family photo session, take my advice and get that AMAZING canvas grouping that will “WOW” everyone who enters your home! Get those prints that you can frame and enjoy day in and day out. It will be an investment, so prepare for that. But you will benefit from them for years to come, and then when you pass them on to your family in the future they will continue to feel the love that you put into them, because they are now treasured heirlooms.
If the question is, “To print or not to print?” my answer will always be a resounding “Print!”. You won’t be sorry. 🙂
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