Lindsay I was going though my closet in the office the other day and stumbled upon a bunch of 3.5 in disks that contained all my writing from when I was a teen (I was a prolific poem writer even into college). After laughing that the packrat in me still had these, I realized that I don’t actually have a device that can read that format of data any longer! Thankfully I did print a couple into a book, but I did not print all of them. So, for now, until I can find an old relic of a computer (or hire someone), the rest of my writings are locked away. They are “safe” but unreadable right now.
Further digging in that same closet produced album after album of images from when I was younger – before the advent of digital cameras. So, working in batches of 24 (which sometimes made you shoot with more intention) and paying a premium in order to get the prints back faster, I had physical copies of those memories that will always, regardless of technology, be readable.
So where am I going with this? Well, let me ask you, how many of you flip though old photo albums from your parents or grandparents? Can you imagine you children not being able to do the same? Digital media will evolve and much of what we use today will either not exist or have changed so much that our current form of storage is no longer accessible.
I totally get that everyone wants digitals so that they can share them on Facebook or other social media and I’m happy to oblige however many times they never go beyond that. They remain on the drive or disk forever, never to see the light of day again. I’m even guilty of this myself (but have been working slowly but sure to remedy that with our family year books).
So, in the new year it is my intention to move to a more print based business. I’ll still offer digitals because I know my clients really want them but my pricing and packages will be structured to encourage you to print your memories and display them in your homes or in albums. Having them out for everyone to enjoy makes me the happiest photographer!
P.S. This should not be limited to just professional photos that you’ve had taken – print those phone photos too! There are a bunch of awesome services out there to quickly assemble an album from your phone images (Social Print Studio or even Shutterfly) to keep them forever.
P.P.S. If you like my work be sure to follow me on Facebook or Google+ for more!
