Why you should print your photos
The reasons to love photographic prints are endless, especially in this increasingly digital world. How many of us grew up with framed family photos throughout our homes? Who else plastered their walls with posters of their favorite music artists (Teen Beat magazine had me in a chokehold)? Did you sit down with your grandparents while they combed through generations of family photos in an old, faded album?
Whether it's on our cell phone or film or a professional photoshoot, every single image we take, at its core, is a memory. It's easy to forget how important it is to have these memories to hold on to, to come back to. Printing your images breathes life into them in beautiful new ways, and if that's not enough, here are a few more reasons why I believe prints matter.
Relive your memories
Be honest-when was the last time you sat down to scroll through your phone and admire all your digital images? Of course, it feels convenient to have our memories always at our fingertips, but more often than not, our digital memories end up lost in the shuffle of all the other noise that lives on our phones. In reality, we probably take the time to relive those memories far less often than we intend to, and printing your images is a surefire way to compel you to pause and relive those beautiful memories far more often.
Something you can feel
Printing your images creates more opportunities for you to sit down and reminisce on the memories of your session and your own magick. Preserving your memories with something tactile, something with body and weight and texture to it, that you can hold in your hands, has such a tremendous impact. Prints and photo albums bring your experience out of your screen and into your hands and home.
Technology isn't perfect
We have all had moments where technology goes awry and fails us in one way or another. Whether it is losing all our hard work because auto-save doesn't work or your camera throwing an error message at the least opportune moment, at some point we all find ourselves at the mercy of the tech gods. When you print your photos, you guarantee that memory won't get lost in the digital ethers, never to be seen again.
Preservation for generations
No matter what your family (including your chosen family) looks like, we all want to live on in spirit and memory after we may be gone. Printing your photos means you can physically pass your treasured memories along to your loved ones. Can you imagine leaving behind a cell phone for your family to scroll through whenever they want to relive precious moments you captured? Prints and photo albums bring families together. They gather everyone together. A photo album whispers to everyone to gather around and listen while you tell a story about the day you felt like a total badass and you point to a picture to transport everyone right back to that moment in time.
Do you have to print every single photo you ever take or have taken of yourself? Of course not. But making the conscious choice to print and preserve your most important memories is one of the great gifts you can give yourself and your loved ones. Photos help make your house a home. They help breathe life into the walls around you. They tell the stories of your journey through this life. And they help make sure your light lives on for generations to come.
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