Imagine this…

You just had some of the best photos ever taken.  A quick download later, they’re now on your computer. Odds are good you uploaded them to some social media and got some likes.  Maybe you intended to print…but life got in the way and now that session just sits on your hard drive. Or maybe you were close to printing but you second guessed everything and never printed. Or maybe you just never knew where to begin and were overwhelmed from the start.

So your favorite photos ever now sit unseen on a computer. Sound familiar?

Or worse yet, your computer crashed and those files are GONE.

I cannot stress the importance of printing and displaying your photos for maaaaany reasons. Yes, I love the product I supply to families but it’s soooo much deeper than that!

You can create another digital file from a print

Let me be honest for a second.  It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when you lose a file, what will you do to recover it? You can always try contacting your photographer in hopes they still have the file and that’s the route I suggest.  But what if they don’t have it? Will you spend hundreds or thousands to maybe recover your hard drive?  If you printed, you can easily scan the photo to create another digital file. Easy solution!

Does that mean you have to print. Every. Single. Photo?  Back in the day, we HAD to print, right? Everything was on film and since most everyone did NOT have a darkroom to develop those negatives, everything was printed.  Lots of those photos were lost over the years – I know I tore or threw some out over time.  In the age of digital and photographing everything we see, I suggest you print that ones that have strong meaning to you that you would be heartbroken if you couldn’t get it back in some form. I take several cellphone photos a day, usually of weird things my kids are doing. They’re nothing special and honestly I don’t intend on printing those. Will I be sad if I lose them?  OF COURSE! They’re my kids and my memories and I would be heartbroken, but I wouldn’t cry over it. Will I cry if the photos my photographer made are lost?  YUP.  Those are the milestone ones, the special ones that have a ton of emotional value to me that I am going to print have already printed.

Plus, digital media changes SO fast. How many of us backed things up on a 3.5″ floppy?  Or on a ZIP or JAZZ drive?  Or on a DVD?  My computer doesn’t even have a disc drive anymore!  USB storage is a great alternative, but even those ports are being phased out on new computers.  So please, print what you love then double back up everything else in two separate places. 1 on your network.  1 on the cloud.

Hint: if you are an Amazon Prime member, you have FREE photo storage with your subscription. I offer a cloud-based storage system for my client’s to forever access (again, its digital so it can disappear at any time), but not all photographers out there offer that.  So please back up your photos.  Back. Them. Up.

Show what you love

Show of hands – how many people just have random paintings or landscapes on their wall that has no emotional connection to their family other than “its pretty”? YES, those things are fine and I have them too, but is that all you have up?  Your walls should be filled with things that you love and that’s important to you – like your family.  Why?  Keep reading…

Psychology supports printed photos

Over the past few decades several studies have been done between portraits, both printed and digital, on children and their feeling of self-worth. One study was done by Tulane University and it positively linked a child’s printed photograph directly to their self esteem. Psychologist David Krauss says “I am very conservative about self-esteem and I think placing a family photo someplace in the home where the child can see it every day without having to turn on a device or click around on a computer to find it, really hits home for that child this sense of reassurance and comfort. They have a certainty about them and a protecting quality that nurtures a child. It lets them know where they are in the pecking order and that they are loved and cared for”.

Basically a printed photo tells your children that they are loved and that they belong. It shows they are important.  A quick search and you’ll come across psychologists all agreeing – printed photos are amazing for a child’s feeling of love, self-worth, and self-esteem and offers something tangible to the mind that is lost with a digital photo.

Print is on the rise.

I’m sure people are reading this and thinking, bleh, print is dead.  No one does that.  Listen, I don’t care where you print. I want you to have quality prints. Whether you order from me, your own photographer, or a quality lab, I am happy. But the fact is that in 2016, there were 176 million print orders with 8.2 billion units made (photos, books, etc). And those numbers get bigger every year. Print is on the incline, not decline. I have been doing this since 2009 and each year my print orders beat the previous years numbers, hands down, even with the printing options available to my families. People want prints!

Here’s an analogy…

Would you go to a painter and pay hundreds or thousands to commission them to paint something special just for you, to trust their talents to create something, and then shove it in a desk drawer when they finish? No, that would be crazy!  So why hire out a photographer for you to do the same with the photos they created for you? Most likely, you’re paying a decent amount for these photos – time to print that investment so its not wasted.

But we move a lot/we don’t have a lot of wall space for printed photos.

Not a problem!  There are several options out there like photo albums, books, or memory boxes that allow you to display your photos other than a printed or hanging picture.

So how do I print? How do I design something to hang?

Lucky you, I made something that will help guide you through that design process. You can enter your email here and it will automatically be sent to you. Check your spam/junk folder if you don’t see it within 10 minutes.

You can also ask your photographer for help if they have experience creating wall displays or if they have recommendations on where to print your files (my favorite place to send my families is to mpix.com if they don’t want to print through me). You can also order any of my speciality products or I can also create something just for your home if you have no idea what you are doing, even after reading the guide.  I honestly love doing it and the families I work with love it, too!

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If you are in the Chicago suburbs and on the hunt for a maternity, newborn, or family photographer, let’s chat!  My studio is located in downtown Lake Zurich IL and I see families all throughout the northwest Chicago suburbs like Barrington, Libertyville, Highland Park, Hawthorn Woods, and more. I’d love to create something just for you and your family! stacy@golden-photography.net