I am not sure if this post is as much about organizing your photos as I was originally thinking but its still a play off of last weeks post so lets stick with Part Two! This week I am planning on making you all feel guilty. And I dont feel bad about it! ha! But seriously...Now that you have successfully organized your digital photos what do you do with them? How many of you take a million photos and either store them on your phone, facebook or somewhere on your computer and that is it? I am guessing most of you. We are happy as long as we take the photos and have them quick at hand in our phones or are able to quickly post them on social media sites. We have welcomed a crazy world of quickly advancing technology that allows for us to have instant gratification and the abilities to share our photos so easily. And this is all great and I admit I fall into this trend as well. I blog and post my images on facebook as fast as I can take them. I shoot hundreds of photos on my iphone as its what I have on me. In my defense however I do "Hire" a photographer when needed (I can't shoot myself afterall) and I pull out the big camera during the more important times that need documented. Here is where the guilt is going to come in. How many of you print your images? And be honest. I have been told by MANY that they have them on their computer or facebook so they are happy. Or maybe you dont have a house where you can display a million images or you dont like to have a million images up on your walls. Do you remember what you have from your childhood? We have photos that our parents saved for us. They may be in shoe boxes or maybe some were a little better and they made it to albums or frames. And if we go even further back in our history we have old Black & White Tin Types. Or at least I do. When my grandmother passed she had a ton of old tin types that I inherited and they are AMAZING. That may be a little out of context but the point I was making if we look in our past we all have something we can hold in our hands. Something tangible that holds memories from our past or our families past. There is a chance you could be sitting on negatives (I know I still have plenty) but nowadays there is limited resources for film photographers and that is only going to get more limited as time passes.
So take a minute and think about this....Remember VHS tapes? LOL Okay that was not that long ago but honestly how many people still have VHS players? Technology has evolved and its all about DVD's now. How about record players that turned into CD's that now is all done with MP3 files through iTunes so you can have it on your phone or iPod. I bet you rarely (if ever) still buy CD's. So where the heck am I going with all this you ask? I wanted you to think about how fast our world has changed in just a short amount of time. Where do you think technology is going to be in 50 years? Do you really think there is going to be a facebook? Are digital files we shoot now going to be readable in 50 years? How about the DVD's or hard drives we back up our images on? Will our grandkids be able to whip them out and look at photos? When you think about VHS tapes being replaced by DVD's we didnt really loose the movies but we may have had to re-buy them. But with our photos if the technology changes where are we at? You cant retake them. Dan and I took on digital photography very early and he admitted to me the other day that he had files that were old enough that they were no longer readable. He lost those images. There is no saving them and the technology changed enough there was nothing he could do. That scares me.
My solution to this problem we have zero answer to? PRINT YOUR PHOTOS!!!!! And I am being dead serious. I dont care if you put them in a shoebox but PRINT THEM! Leave memories for your kids. A digital file is not a memory. I am not telling you to print every single photo you take but pull out a few from those important times and print them. If you are able to put them in an album even better. Stop living in the immediate gratification and remember that we are leaving memories for our kids to pass on and to be able to share their past with them. Do not wait to print. Do not stall and think I have them on the computer Ill print later. What if your computer dies? Hard drive dies? Anything could happen. And yes I know...a house could burn down and aliens could invade earth....We cant plan for the worse. But Im just saying do your BEST to remember to leave something for your kids. Something more than a digital file. And if all else fails and you are one of those mom's (or dad's) who isnt good at this kind of stuff...HIRE A PROFESSIONAL!!! Im not saying that to get more business...Im saying it because its important. Snag yourself a photographer once a year or when you can afford it and have them create a book or prints for you. They will take away the hard part and you can be a hero! ha!
I will get off my soap box now. And I am actually hoping I make you feel a teeny bit guilty. Cause if that means you go home and rummage through some digital files and send them off to print...Ill be happy and proud of you. Or if you are already awesome and you do print then I think you ROCK!
Dont hate me...I really just wanted to make you guys think a bit. This has been a huge topic of conversation for a few of my friends and I lately and I wanted to spread the word! So just remember (in my opinion) "A digital file is not a memory : PRINT YOUR PHOTOS". LOVE YOU!
~Whitney
PS. Here is Lily saying "Print your photos!" 