The photography world has reinvented itself several times over the last couple of decades. One of the issues that has been facing a lot of photographers is the ongoing competition with technology. By technology, I don’t mean technology in our cameras but I mean the technology that has been placed in the hands of our clients, primarily being their mobile phone. Going digital, while it has been a huge convenience, it has also been a point of contention because it has impacted the perceived value (of many) towards photography.
Many photographers (including myself) have gotten away from printing images and in turn just have selected to provide clients with the digital files from their photoshoot. Handing over just the digital files has robbed clients of truly experiencing the full art of our photography. Midway through 2022, I made the decision to return back to the true value of what I do as a photographer… provide actual printed photographs. Now, I am aware that for my business / corporate clients, this still of course means digital files for marketing etc, but I am mainly speaking of what I provide to my clients for their personal portraits and family photography. My good friend and mentor, Bob Davis once said “It’s not a photograph until it is printed…” and he couldn’t be any more correct in his assessment.
What Legacy are We Leaving Our Families?
Within many of our homes right now, are cherished photographs of our family members and loved ones. These printed photographs are extremely valuable to us. We have gotten so comfortable putting our photographs on social media and/or sending them via text message, that we never stopped to think “What if all that stuff goes away tomorrow? What do we have then?”
There is nothing wrong with posting our photos on social media but let’s make sure to keep the main thing the main thing and create, preserve and share our memories by printing photographs that can be passed down for generations.