Top 5 Reasons Why You Should Print Your Family Photos

1.        Because it makes you feel good!  The positive psychological effects it has on your entire family is the number one reason.

Think about the house you grew up in for a moment.  Do you remember having framed pictures around your home?  Were your school portraits positioned and hung neatly up your stairway?  Did you ever sit at your grandma’s house and look through photo albums filled with your family’s memories?  What about when you brought your first girlfriend/boyfriend to Thanksgiving dinner?   Did your older sister pull out the family album with all the super embarrassing moments from your past?  My parents still have pictures of us girls (myself and my two sisters) all over their homes.  My dad literally prints out random pictures we send him and gleefully displays them all over his house.  He gloats about us and our successes and uses the photos to help tell our stories to his visitors.   He now has his grandkids filling his walls too and reminds me how much he loves seeing them every day throughout his house.  This makes me, as an adult, feel included in his life from four hours away!  Think about the impact for your child for them to be able to see themselves, throughout your family’s home.  Think of the impact of your child not seeing family photos placed throughout their home?  I’m sure some of you grew up homes like this too.  How did that make you feel when you went to other family’s home that did display their family unit through images.   A feeling of belonging to one’s family has a life impact.  The feeling and daily reminder that they are an important part of your family is what you will be giving your child when you display printed portraits.

2.        Self-esteem booster

Not only does seeing themselves in pictures throughout the home influence their feelings about belonging, but it also influences their personal self-esteem.   For children, it’s not about “likes” on a photo.  It is about how they feel when they see that photo.  How when you walk past that photo together, you remind them of the day it was taken, about the memory that it captured and how wonderful it was to spend the day with them.  It’s a confidence boost when you hold that image in your hands, as they look over your shoulder and you tell them how beautiful and special, they are.  These printed pictures serve as a healthy way for a child to see themselves in a positive light.  Hopefully, you have printed your wedding photos, how do you feel when you see yourself in those images?   What kind of happy thoughts does it bring to you?  Do you feel beautiful?  Special?  I sure hope so!  That is what we want our kids to feel daily, especially in a world where images are being used against us more often than for us. 

3.        Recognize family and friends

How long has it been since your kids have seen their grandparents?  I’m sure for most, during this pandemic, it has probably been a while.  And all visits are few and far between.  If dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic has taught us anything, it should be that family is extremely important: it is the most important.  It has taught me that I want my family in my life more and more often.  I have a toddler and the way she has been learning about the different family members we cannot see right now; is through all the images I have hung up in our stairway.  Every day, on the way downstairs for breakfast, we talk about all the people in those pictures.  She now points and tells me who they are!  She can identify grandpas and grandmas even though she has only seen them a handful of times in her life. 

4.        Digital images do not preserve your memories

Okay, now you’re thinking, “Tiffany, yes, they do!  That’s why we want them!”  Think about it for a minute.   How many pictures do you have on your phone right now?  How are they being useful for you?  There are thousands of images that never get sorted and certainly never printed that may or may not get lost when you get a new phone.  Even if you back your images up, when are you going to have the time to go through thousands of images?  And even when you do, what are you going to do with them?

5.        What photos will preserve your legacy?  What images will be displayed at your funeral?

I know this sounds a little dark and gloomy and it’s not something anyone likes to think about, but what memories are you passing down to future generations with your digital photos?   The medium we are currently using for storing images may not even be able to be used in 50 years, hello VHS!   The number of images we photograph nowadays is immense and often filled with screenshots and pictures of what we ate for dinner.  Is this something our grandchildren will want to sort through?  I doubt many would make it past the first 100 images of your “digital files” and just pitch whatever storage device you had them on.  When my great aunt passed (God rest her beautiful soul) we had over 100 years of pictures to go through (she lived to be 100!) and that was something we treasured!  Prints have more of an impact than the same image can ever have digitally. 

       Print your photos!   Even the ones from your cell phone.  There are so many different places to print, my suggestion is mpix.com!  They are a great consumer lab that prints as close to the professional labs’ quality as it gets. 

      For your professional portraits, here is my advice: 

      Order prints from your photographer.  Your photographer chooses the labs they work with due to their quality.   Due to the quality in which those labs print their artwork (your family pictures).  They know what adjustments might need to be made to the image before sending to the lab.  They know what color space to order their images in.  They know what mediums will look best.  Whether or not to mat the image or mount it?  What glass will best protect your photos from UV damage.  And they know to choose the most appropriate paper to make sure your images last several lifetimes.  You certainly can still order your digital images to share on social media, most photographers understand that is how we share our memories currently, but for the forever part, print!

If you found value in this blog post, please comment at the bottom of this page.

In Health & Happiness,

Tiffany Sistowicz

Scarlett Photography LLC

Chicago, IL 

Email me at:  Scarlettphotographyllc@gmail.com

Call/Text: 708-512-4990