It IS important to print your photos. Here are several reasons why. This is my very favorite photograph of my youngest child. He was laying on my bed taking a nap when he was only a few months old. The sun was coming in the window and was shining on him just beautifully. I had all these gold pillows on the bed and he just looked like a little jewel laying there wrapped in his cousin’s baby Pooh Bear baby blanket.
![Why Print Your Photos](https://southjerseyphotographer.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/01-1823-post/Printing-Your-Photos.jpg)
Here it is. My favorite image of my now 12 year old. This tiny little image that I can no longer print.
To get this photograph at the right angle and without casting a shadow on him, I had to stand at the very edge of the bed, one foot on a chair and try not to wake him. Needless to say…I really wanted to get this image.
I took this photo with my very first digital SLR camera. A Digital Rebel that they no longer make since this was almost 13 years ago. Being that it was digital, I downloaded it to my old Dell PC. Also, no longer in use. Try as I may to make sure every single thing is backed up when I change computers, we are talking about 4 computers ago at this point and sometimes personal items just don’t make it through the move. I know at one point my computer was barely functioning and I was just trying to back up whatever I could before it completely crashed.
Now, I’m very techy so I’ve been known to take hard drives out of broken computers and put them in a functioning computer and I’ve salvaged 2 hard drives which I was told BY COMPUTER PROFESSIONALS, were completely dead. My point is that it’s highly unlikely that I would loose any data.
But this photo got away. Someway, somehow, it is completely missing from any of my files, folders, external hard drives, etc. For all I know…I accidentally deleted it. I had one exquisite 5×7 print of it but I gave it to my son to use for a school project being that I figured I had the digital and could always print another. Well, I never did and now the image is gone. Yes, I have this tiny little file because I had posted the image on Facebook a lifetime ago. But I can’t print it, I can only look at it on a computer. I can’t put it in a baby album, I really can’t do ANYTHING with it except look at it on a computer. So that’s my story about that.
Another reason is that children LIKE to see photos of themselves. It has been known to boost their self esteem. Growing up we always had portraits in our home. We didn’t have much money so the portraits were usually of some sort of special occasion. I recall my mom hiring a photographer for my sister’s 10th birthday and it was such a big deal! And she got this beautiful profile image of her mounted on wood! It was GORGEOUS and it is still on the wall in my parents’ home. The others were our communion photos (still up on the walls) and later our wedding photos. Always big and beautifully framed. My sister had to wait a year after her communion to have her photos done because she had a borrowed dress and we couldn’t afford portraits at that time. So she wore my dress a year later and each of us were photographed in a studio on Elizabeth Ave. I still remember it. And it made me feel special that my parents wanted these big photos of us in our home. It made me feel like they were proud of us.
That’s my personal experience but don’t just take my word for it. Here are 2 articles explaining how having portraits of your family and children affects them. Daily Mail UK Article and Design Aglow Article.
Often times people wonder if photographers actually have photos on their walls. YES WE DO. And my children love them. They are proud of the photos and they each remember when we took them. I have a huge wall gallery of black and white canvases going up my staircase that we did on Thanksgiving Day in my old studio and we were cracking up taking the photos. I have their one year portraits, my oldest’s graduation portrait and a collection of other images from random years in the living room. And in the family room I have a MASSIVE 60″canvas of the 3 of them anchored on either side by 20×24″ framed metal prints of a family session we had done last year. Oh and a maternity photo of myself and photos of the kids when the youngest was born on another wall. So yes…photos EVERYWHERE. I even have a framed photo of my husband and his grandfather from the 1940’s so our displayed images date back quite some time.
![Staircase wall gallery](https://southjerseyphotographer.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/01-1823-post/South-Jersey-Photograper-Wall-Gallery.jpg)
This is the series of 15 large canvases that go up my staircase. It is a statement piece and gets a compliment every time someone steps into my house. The purpose is to show everyone’s personality. My husband is a coach which is why he’s yelling. LOL.
My kids are 21 (as of this coming weekend), 15 and 12. They are quite used to seeing these images as part of their daily lives. But now and then I’ll catch them stopping and looking over our photos. And it is very common for them to grab an album off the bookcase and look through it together and reminisce. Would they sit at the computer and scroll through images? Nope. And to be honest…neither do I. And neither will you. And this isn’t because their mom is a photographer. Believe me…they couldn’t care less.
As your kids get older and the amount of images just gets overwhelming, they will get buried in your computer. Trust me. So print your favorites. Use a professional for special milestones and BUY PRINTS! Every single client who has purchased a beautiful wall portrait or wall gallery has told me how much they love their images. Now, those who only choose to get digitals always tell me that they’ve done nothing with them. They’re sitting on their computer and they can’t enjoy them daily. And that’s a real shame.
My kids were born into the digital age but I know that nothing replicates having printed images as part of your home, out daily for everyone to enjoy. It IS important to print your photos.
As a professional photographer, I pride myself on providing beautifully finished portraits ready to be displayed in your home. Whether it’s a canvas, framed print, a metal, wall gallery or a gorgeous album…all are great ways to have the images in front of you to enjoy and make them part of your decor.