I understand the innate drive to want the digital files. Believe me, I do! I know you feel that for safe-keeping if I ever disappear or delete them, you want them there in your hands to protect. I understand, too, the feeling of wanting “every single image” of our children because they’re ALL cute. But, I also understand that procrastination gets the best of us sometimes. Our lives are always busy, especially with a child (children) in the mix. We become hesitant to purchase because we don’t often put art on the walls and it can be expensive to do it right. And I also know the following points to be true:

LET ME TELL YOU A STORY

As a stay-at-home mom with young children, I spent some of their naptime printing photos and scrapbooking. While I don’t have much time for that hobby anymore, there were several lessons I learned along the way. The most important of those was observing how my children’s eyes lit up just from seeing printed images of themselves. It was then that I started to see the connection between a child’s self-esteem and seeing printed images of themselves and their family. Seeing those images in a shared space such as an album or wall also increased the conversation about those shared memories, reliving those cherished times and cementing the fact that they were loved and part of a family.

It’s a primary goal in this business to help all my clients get their most favorite images printed and showcased in a viewable manner in their home as quickly as possible. I offer collections that come with both prints and digital files, as well as wall art and albums.

Here are a few links if you’d like to learn more about the value of a printed image on a child’s self-esteem.

• Baltimore Sun Article from 1994
• UK’s Daily Mail article from 2009
• Photography Builds Self-Esteem from Lifetouch Photography

ANTIQUATED TECHNOLOGY

Do you still have a floppy disk drive? You know, those big 5.25″ or even the 3.5″ ones that we used to store data and pictures on back in the 80s? Yeah, I found some of those back in 2009 labeled from a vacation to my uncle’s house when he lived in Pensacola. Guess how good those digital files are to me now?

What about a CD drive? Did you know that most laptops aren’t being made with those anymore!? How many of you still have a VHS player, and no one born today even knows a thing about 8-tracks and cassettes from our car dash.

The point with those questions is that technology is always changing. What we’re using now to store digital media will likely not be around in 20 years. But how about those childhood photos that you have in your attic? I bet they’re still here, and will probably still be around 30 years from now. Digital files (the little bytes themselves) are also not archival. It’s only a matter of when (not if) your files become corrupt or the drive crashes. With digital files, please, please be sure to keep them backed up in several different locations.

WHAT WOULD YOU GRAB IF YOU HAD FIVE MINUTES TO EVACUATE?

When someone’s is being evacuated and they have five minutes to grab whatever is most valuable and important to them, they don’t respond with “I’d grab my computer or my xbox.” Instead, their response is always something more like “I would save my grandmother’s quilt she made when she was first married,” or “my grandfather’s baby photos,” or some other heirloom piece. So, I ask you again, if you had five minutes to get out of your home, what would you grab?

AND OTHER IDEAS TO CONSIDER:

• a print is a tangible, interactive experience.
• a print is art.
• a print is a final product. The digital file is only the recipe.
• a print can be a gift.
• a print is classic and timeless.
• a print is lasting.

A WORD ABOUT PRINTING YOUR DIGITAL FILES

The Studio uploads any purchased images from your ordering appointment to an online, password-protected gallery. A link will be emailed to you after your ordering session and you may share that (and your password) with anyone you choose. Your online gallery will be shown with watermarks on the computer, but once downloaded, they are removed. Once downloaded, it’s recommended to save and backup your images in a few different locations (the cloud, an external hard drive, your computer). At this point, you can upload and print your images anywhere you choose, though I recommend mpix.com. Please know that once you take the files and print them yourself, the studio has no control over print quality and color matching and will not be guaranteed. We are a full-service studio, so if you need us to help, we are here for you!