Prints

I mentioned that I'm changing my photography structure in my last post. I've been thinking about this and writing down plans and thoughts for quite some time, and I'm excited to implement them this Spring.  It all started with me looking a giant tub of my photos from high school and college.  I have a ton of prints, but they're not in albums, so they just sit there. It's kind of sad.  Then I have several external hard drives with thousands of digital images.  Even worse, they're not printed.   No one is EVER going to plug those things in an sift through over 50,000 images (that's just the last 8 years) and actually enjoy that.  Digital images are something to be shared now, but they're not heirlooms.  They will not last.  After doing photography for other families for a couple years now, I realize I have done a disservice by not offering prints.  A lot of people haven't even printed their pictures.  They lose the USB.  That's the worse thing. They have nothing to show for the time and money they put into their family portraits.  Some people actually print their images, but usually they use a consumer lab and the images are dark, grainy and have weird colors.  One time I saw my pictures on someones wall and was actually horrified.  I got home and immediately went through their photos thinking, "Did I really do that bad of a job???"  Thankfully I was relieved to see that on my computer, they looked fine.  I found out they had free prints at a very popular drug store and took advantage of that.  Several people have printed from Facebook, and the result is horrific.  I feel like if you are going to take the time to book family photos, and coordinate outfits, then you need something more than digital files for your investment.  You need something on the walls of your home... something that looks nice and not green and dark.  Something you can pull out years down the road, not on a broken hard drive or lost USB, but a real image you can touch and show your kids how cute they were when they were little.   And that is why I am now offering prints and canvas, and digital images are not going to be offered without the purchase of prints.   I'm really excited about it!  I like the idea of taking a beautiful photo, editing it, then showing you on a big screen how beautiful it looks... and then bringing samples over so you can see what would look good on your wall.  I have been ordering prints for several months and every time something over 16x20 comes in my heart just stops. The images are BEAUTIFUL, they NEED to be big.  It's so worth it.   If you saw that picture of Tristan above in a large print, you would see why seeing it on just a computer screen isn't all it's mean to be.   Anyway... that's what is in store for this Spring.  Prints.  Like it always should have been.  :)