When I visit at a friend's home, or anyone's home for that matter, the first thing I gravitate towards are their pictures. Whether it's pictures framed on the wall or photo albums, I love being able to peek into someone else's world through the memories that they have captured and put into print. I grew up in a home where my mom proudly displayed photos of our family on the living room wall. We had tons of photo albums documenting family trips we had taken and milestones in our life. Whether it was graduations, weddings or just spending time together as a family. The same is true of my husband. Photo albums and framed portraits were commonplace. The photos below are from left to right: My parents wedding day in 1963 and a photo from my husband's side of the family dated January, 1939. That's 80 years, amazing right? And the photo is still in such great shape.
As I've grown older, I treasure the fact that although my parents are no longer living, I can still relive our time spent together through our family photos. After becoming a mother myself, I take delight in photographing my own children and putting those pictures into print. I also enjoy seeing how my children react when they see their father and I in our younger years, or look at our wedding album which is now 22 years old. While it's true that we have digital images stored on numerous hard drives laying around the house somewhere...it's nice to know that I can always peek through a photo album and reminisce. Just the other day I found a picture of my five year old when he was about a year, and it immediately brought a smile to my face thinking about him at that tender age.
So what's the point of all this? Nothing can replace the emotional stimulation you feel when you look at a printed photo of someone or something, especially when it's someone near and dear to you. Printed photos also elicit conversation and can bring people together. In this digital age that we live in, more and more people are geared towards digital images. And it's true, they do have certain advantages. For example, with a digital image you can instantly share photos online with friends and family who may live a distance away. The downfall is that the media on which these images are stored are only meant to be temporary. It is not a finished product. The finished product would be the print, canvas or album that you choose to showcase your images. A digital image is not something you can pass on to your children 20 or 30 years from now. How many of us still have floppy disks laying around, if you're even old enough to know what that is.
Technology is constantly changing, what is in today is out tomorrow. In addition CDs, DVDs, USB drives and hard drives are all subject to corruption and failure. How many times have you lost an important document due to a hard drive crashing? Or you pull out a USB drive to retrieve some data only to find that it's empty. These are concerns you won't have with printed photographs. With proper care, they could last for a lifetime and even be passed on to future generations. In addition, there are so many options for printing out those precious photos. These include canvas, wood, metal, the classic framed print and so on. Your photographer, hopefully that's us, can help you decide which option best fits your style and would compliment your home decor. So, have you been framed? If not, we would love to have the privilege to preserve your memories in a way that can be passed on to your children and grandchildren.