The Power & Importance Of Print

in #photography • 6 years ago

Hi Steemians! Today I am sharing a post that I am really passionate about! I have always believed that photographs should be printed to be enjoyed and that really its the best way to future proof your memories! I hope you enjoy the post! - Verity x

New Generation

Its been said that our generation is the generation with the MOST photographs by far... but also the least. Hard drives and things like the Cloud have not been around long enough for us all to know how long they will last. With photographs so easily taken these days on phones and small cameras we take it for granted that we are capturing moments of history only to be forgotten about a week down the line, or lost in your 1000's of Cloud photographs. Its just not good enough. Photographs in the olden days were taken for purposes, either educational or traditions but these days so many things are being photographed that we loose track of which ones we SHOULD be saving and making sure we don't loose. Because its that easy to take a few hundred its almost devaluing the photographs that we actually want to capture and remember. I think because my professional job is to capture people's wedding days I see it far too often how important photographs become to people. So many stories we've had where the couples parents have only been given a certain number of days left to live and its our job to capture the moments of joy on their wedding day so that they can all look back and remember the good times. Its important. We got married nearly 6 years ago and have since lost members of our family, the photographs we have of them are so precious and going into each wedding now we always make sure that we capture as much as we can because we KNOW that these photographs will be looked at for generations to come, and isn't that amazing. That photographs we take will keep giving back to so many people. Its why we do what we do. I have always been fascinated with the thought of pressing the shutter and capturing a specific moment that is just unrepeatable, as soon as that shutter is pressed it becomes part of history. And to think that we have everything in our generation that we could possibly want to help take photographs etc and to maybe think that in 20,30,40 years all of those photographs could be lost is just really sad. So how else can you protect them other than print?! These days there are SO many companies offering cheap 6x4 prints for such little amounts that every now and again I will upload all my phone photographs and have them printed, even if when they come they just go straight into a box, at least I know that they will be forever safe. So I encourage you all to do the same!

Family History

I remember the days when I was younger when I would sit on the floor and go through the trunk load of photographs my parents have collected from their parents and so on and so on. It was amazing to me to look at my family throughout the years and laugh at their fashion choices and hair styles! I would love to be able to do that with my children and their children, its one of those things that just will never get old. I would point to someone in the photo and my parents would tell me a story about whoever it was and they would almost come alive in my hand, having something physical to feel makes it appear more real. People in these days used to spend so long setting up the photograph as they knew they didn't have so many to take, they made so much effort so that in years to come people like us can look back at what it was like. It would be nice if in the future we had something to show too.

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Photo Books

The time you spend looking at a photograph that's printed and one that's on a screen is hugely different. When you get handed a printed photo or a photo book you spend time going over all the parts of the photograph all the different elements, there was a study done to track your eye movement when looking at a print compared to online and your eyes move around nearly the whole photograph when its printed whereas online you just look briefly at the center and move on. Every holiday we go on we print a photobook, it doesn't have to be an expensive one but we love doing them. We take so many hundreds of photographs that giving someone a laptop of photographs to go through just doesn't seem fun, but giving them an album to look at makes it more of an experience and you end up pointing at things in photographs and asking more questions about them too. We have also started making year albums, so at the start of each year we create a folder on our separate computers of photographs we love that we have taken and then at the end of the year put them all into an album! The number of days we will just take our cameras out for maybe an hour or two and not take many shots and just forget about them, well this way means that even the ones like that are never forgotten!

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Small Prints

They don't have to be big prints either, I have an HP Sprocket which is amazing and lets me print out photographs from my phone instantly and give them to gifts to people! This is great when I get to see my family and haven't seen them for a while, we can take a quick photo and then I can give a copy to each of them right there and then! The prints are a great size to fit into the back of your phone case or wallet, its so nice to just be able to print them out wherever you are. It works on digital ink so you don't have to buy ink, just paper. It connects to a usb for power and your ready to go! A really good buy if you are into making scrapbooks and stuff to!

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Polaroids

Polaroids are another great way of getting instant prints. I love Polaroids but end up taking so many that its just so expensive! But if you can control your habit and take a few here and there they are great. I have got a little photo album of just Polaroids that I take and love looking through them! This polaroid camera is the best for price/quality and also looks quite cool! I love how there are lots of options with Polaroids too, you can write on the bottom of them and buy special packs that have different colour borders and even patterned ones.

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Wedding Prints

Even for our wedding clients we always send out prints with our wedding photography package. Yes I know we are in a digital era and most people are doing download links, but to us sending a download link for your wedding photographs and asking the couples to wait hours for them to download doesn't really put that must importance on the photographs. Instead we like the first thing they see are around 20 prints that we have selected to showcase their wedding, we hand mount each of them so that if they wanted to them frame them they could. It instantly says that we are about your photographs and they are something you should take care of and cherish too. I wonder how many clients with download links look at them once or twice and then that's it, they are just stuck online somewhere forever. Its a real shame, photographs are taken to be enjoyed.

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So however you choose to print it doesn't matter, all that matters is that you do PRINT!

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- Verity x

Photography by me and copyrighted to me.
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6 years ago in #photography by
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     6 years ago 

    Hear, hear!

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     6 years ago 

    I couldn't agree with you more! I have started to print of late and I love it. There is something about holding an actual printed photo instead of looking at it on a screen.

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       6 years ago 

      Thank you! Yes there is! Its totally different, nice to see that you are printing out too!

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         6 years ago 

        I recently set myself the task of printing nearly 3000 photos from my time in London and Europe. 9 photo albums were needed. I've still got lots of places to go but it feels great knowing I can pick up an album and go through those memories at any time

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           6 years ago 

          That's amazing! 9 albums?! That's a lot! But yeah the knowledge to know you can just pick one of those albums up and relive that holiday is so nice!

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             6 years ago 

            Its been at the back of my mind lately that I would really like to pick up a 4x5 or 8x10 medium format film camera. The reason being twofold (and in a way related to your post).

            1. So that I take time to expose my shots when out in the field as opposed to taking dozens and maybe rushing things.

            2. To force me to print stuff out. I used to do B+W darkroom work and I do wonder about going back to it. Maybe one day I will.

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               6 years ago 

              This is why I also take out my film camera with me so that I KNOW that I will have to print some out! Haha, its a really good way to make sure that you will have something printed from that trip! I hope you manage to get one soon :)

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                 6 years ago 

                Really good post and totally agree :)

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                   6 years ago 

                  Thank you so much!

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                     6 years ago 

                    You second the advice I recently received from #soyrosa who suggested I print my photos too for a better overview of how I was progressing with my work. Makes so much sense to paper-addict me (I print all my - longer - mails and writing out to edit better), but it is encouraging to hear this from the pros. Before I only had my 75 year old mother as an example for this practice!
                    Let's not think about the trees, though ....hmmm every upside has it's down side I suppose.
                    Those albums are especially great with no chance of photos slipping out like the did of the traditional albums - and you will be bothered to write up exact details alongside them.

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                       6 years ago 

                      Thank you, glad you enjoyed the post! That's a good idea about printing out mails etc! Sometimes having something physical is still the best way! This is true, its always good to think about the trees, you can re-recyclable paper to print on so that's an option :)

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                         6 years ago 

                        I love to look at my old photo albums.

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                           6 years ago 

                          Amazing! Me too, they have so much history within them!

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