June 22, 2020

Digital vs Prints

Products

Will I get digital copies of my images or do I have to order prints?

This is an excellent question with a rather lengthy answer, so please bear with me.

I have actually have more than 1 reason that I do not sell digitals for weddings, family sessions, etc. The first reasons is that as an artist, I retain the copyright for all work I produce. The second reason is that marketing analysis states that the majority of people will go to box stores to have their photographs printed because they can buy cute gimmicky things and because they just do not know the difference between standard and quality. What they may not know is that professional prints are 100-200 year archival quality depending on how they are stored. Most box store prints will not last a week in a glass picture frame near a window. Lastly, I would not stay in business very long if I did not sell prints.

I put my heart and soul into my creations, and I want you to absolutely love the process and love your products too.

You are the best and you deserve the best. Every company I use for my prints, canvases, albums, and photo memorabilia has been personally vetted by myself and it exceeds industry standard, All of my products (not including key chains, dog tags, jewelry, and ornaments) are 100 year archival quality. My albums are 200 year archival quality when purchasing a presentation box to protect it from dust and sun degradation.

Why did I go to this length for you?

It comes down to nostalgia. I used to sit on my grandma's lap when I was a little girl and look through her photo albums. What I remembered were pictures with cracks and scratches. They were well loved and carried from the motherland to America, and then across the Midwest till they arrived at their final destination with much wear and tear. My grandmother, bless her heart, taped them all back together the best she could and pasted them to craft paper and bound them all into an album. Other pictures she took herself with an old Kodak brownie, and then upgraded to a Polaroid in the 80's. The newer pictures just got thrown into a shoe box and we shuffled through them. It was so much fun looking through all those pictures over and over again while she told me stories about the people she loved in those pictures. But oh, the abuse those pictures took through the years!

After my grandmother passed away, the pictures were divided among all the remaining family members. I will never be able to see many of them again, and it makes me kind of sad. My parents put everything on slides and in digital archives. We had a few pictures printed and put up on the walls. It wasn't like I could just find my dad's digital archives or look through the slides after the projector outlived its life time. It makes me sad that my childhood memories have been lost.

Did you know that back up drives and thumb drives only have a 90 day warranty after purchase? Most back up drives need to be replaced every 5 years, sometimes less. What would you do if your drive fraggled and you could not retrieve the pictures from your photo shoot? It could take hundreds of dollars to reclaim 1 drive worth of data, if it could be restored at all! My husband works in IT and owned a computer store for some time, and he still restores data on drives for friends and family. I have seen it first hand that sometimes, the data can be restored, but many times it can not.

I prefer to keep all of my family's photo shoots in albums, all lined up in a row on the book shelf so they are accessible for my kids to see whenever they want to. When they have kids, I will pass them down so they can share them too. If they are cared for well, they will survive the next generation, and the one after that too. I love being able to start that legacy with my family, knowing the pictures will stay just as vibrant and the pages just as durable as the day I created the album.

Anyways, that is why I prefer print sales over digital products when it comes to family photo shoots, weddings, newborn and graduate shoots. Oh, but as a gift to you, I also give you the ability to share your pictures on social media too. It is kind of like having the best of both worlds.

If you made it all the way down to the bottom of this post, I want to thank you for getting this far. Remember, do small things with great love, and be the change you want to see in the world! Now go out there and be amazing!