As a photographer, I’ve always felt that it was important to me to provide a complete service, meaning, I view my responsibilities as more than simply taking pictures. Taking pictures is a big part of what I do, but then there’s the printing. How many of you can relate to the type of person who has thousands of pictures stored online through places like apple/google photos, amazon, or other online galleries? Maybe all of your pictures are shared on social media? Maybe you have them on a hard drive or still on your phone. Where ever they may be, chances are you haven’t printed any of them, right? I get it, in today’s age, we take so many pictures that we would need another house just to store all of those prints. However, can you relate to the person who hasn’t printed anything at all? Did you know that having prints of your family around the house builds your child’s self-esteem? I would even go on to say that it builds our self-esteem as well. Psychologist, David Krauss, co-authored a study many years ago about the effects photography has in relation to therapy and self-esteem. He’s quoted by saying, “What it says to a child is, ‘I’m important in this family.’ ” It also shows a child he or she is meaningfully connected to others in the pictures. Favorite photos in a child’s room can enhance the feeling of safety, or offer stimulation. “You want a room to be a safe place where interests, imagination and curiosity come to light.”
Before I had kids, I wouldn’t have understood this very well. However, now that I have kids, I see this in action. This past year, we made some changes in our house and began hanging a lot of prints. Our kids’ rooms each have three-foot-tall images of them. They love seeing it. Our daughter is only one, so she just points and pictures of herself, or her brother, or each of us. She sees her family and likes to point at the pictures of us. Liam, being 3 can communicate how much he likes seeing his picture. He always points out the large image in his room. It was taken at the fair last summer and he’s wearing his cowboy boots and he likes to talk about both the fair and his boots. We also have little albums around the house as well and our kids will flip through the pages and point at everyone they know or talk about the picture. It’s pretty cool to see this in action. Dr. Krauss uses photography as a form of therapy for his patients. It not only shows kids that they are a valuable part of the family, but it also shows them how they’ve changed and grown. We see this in action as well. We show Liam pictures of himself when he was a baby. I always kind of thought he would just assume it’s his sister since she’s still a baby, but he knows the pictures of himself. He sees how he’s grown and how he’s changed.
Getting back to what I said earlier, I view my responsibility as a photographer as one who provides you with prints. I talked about this in a recent post, imagine if you bought a new car. The dealer gives you the keys and you get in the car and turn the keys and nothing. You pop the hood only to find there is no engine. Confused, you go back to the salesperson and explain the issue. The salesperson says they sold you a car, it was your job to provide the engine. You would never do business with a dealer like this, would you? This is the same thing that happens when photographers simply take your pictures and send you the digital files. Unless you are of a small minority of people who are diligent about printing images, chances are, those beautiful family pictures you had taken sit on your phone, gallery and/or social media and never get printed. There is a quote that says, “the most photographed generation will have no pictures in 10 years.” Ten years from now, you’ll probably have a new phone, a new computer with an outdated external hard drive, or lost your flash drive of images from your photographer. Social media will look far different, Facebook and Instagram may not be around still, you maybe they are but you moved onto a different platform or left altogether. Your subscription to Amazon photos probably expired or Google stopped supporting Drive. Whatever it may be, if you do not print your images, the pictures you take or pay to have taken today will not be around a decade or two from now.
Again, no one should print every picture they take. That would be overkill. But those few images that truly speak to you, that feed your soul, those are the images to print. For this reason, while my photography model is very much a digital business, I still make sure to offer prints and other printed items. With my baby clients, I offer one-year baby albums at no extra charge when you book at least three full baby sessions with me. Between maternity and one year old, this is easy to do from maternity, newborn, 3-6 months, 6-9 months and 12 months old, doing at least three sessions are very doable. These little albums highlight the first year of your baby’s life. It’s so important to me that you have printed items that I’m willing to eat that cost. Additionally, I deliver albums via a web gallery where you can order prints. The pricing is very affordable and I realize that usually “affordable” and high-quality products/services do not often mix, but after 10 years in this business, I see more value in making sure you have prints than high-profit margins. Below are some images from a recent one-year baby album I delivered. I love these albums and I’m excited to be able to offer these to families of little ones!
