for the love of prints

I hold the photo up to the webcam and there's silence as my entire family gathers in the kitchen 1500 miles away from where I now sit. At first there's silence and then everyone bursts into chatter all at the same time as their eyes adjust to the image on the screen. "Where did you find that?" ...  "Look at how young she is!" ... "That looks like you!" ...

We, as photographers, are keepers of treasures.

I have an obsession. And I know I am in good company here. We all take tons of photos. (The above is a recent stack of 200+ prints from a three day weekend spent in NYC) I am an everyday shooter, as are many of you. This means alot of hard drive, alot of archives, alot of backup, and hopefully alot of prints. 

My love in real life is in the texture of a photograph in my hands, something I can actually hold. 

As photographers, we are the family documentarians. How has the digital age changed the role of the photographer? I take this job seriously. My brothers used to joke me about it, but now everytime I show up with an image, a memory, a 2x2 inch square of photobooth paper; they realize my deep photo love and they appreciate it even more because I am bringing the past to light for them to enjoy as well. An image in hand can touch your heart more deeply than an image on a computer screen. Printed photographs are gifts.

We've talked storage before. But what I want to know is: do you print your photos like in the days before digital? Do you have a shoebox, an album, a wall of photos? What I want to provide for my son is what I find in my own parents home now as a grown woman. Yes, albums of our lives documented. Yes, milestones and favorites framed on the wall. But the biggest gift to me is the side table. The drawer in the upstairs office that is crammed with photos all randomly tossed in there. Photos mailed from lives in other states, photos carried to nursing homes and back from funerals, photos of lives spent in day to day beauty. It's a treasure chest to me. I grab handfuls of photographs everytime I go visit, I sit down with a lap full of faces and memories and outtakes. And each time I do, I find something new. All equally important. All coming into my life at the most important juncture. When pictures speak more than a thousand words, these scraps of kodak paper float down on me like dreams.

Many of us have a memory lane. Do you? Some of us come to see our parents and generations before them with an entire set of new eyes. Show me today, great basement finds, a favorite oldie, or even the photograph you took just last month that you keep telling yourself you'll print up someday. And think about making that someday today, your future self will thank you. 

Comments

[Marcie]

I like to think that this will someday be a part of someone's 'memory lane'. For now - it sits on my computer...but you are inspiring me to print it out for preservation's sake:
http://marciescudderphotography.com/index.php?showimage=1271

[Vanessa]

my dad passed the family documentarian bug down to me. he has innumerable albums and boxes bursting with decades of family images. he is still very protective of his treasures, reluctant to let me just dive in and root around. reluctant to let me digitalise and multiply precious images of loved ones gone before us. i hope to bring him around eventually.

[ http://risingtothechallenge.blogspot.com/2007/11/photobooth-friday-3.html ...a very old blog post that came to mind as i read your post today...]

[heather]

Old pictures are treasures. I'm as guilty of anyone as not keeping up on printing - but I've shifted into a film mentality recently - I take fewer pictures, and I strive to print more. I believe a photograph is not a photograph until it is a print.

I recently sat down to scan the family photographs most in need of preservation. I am enchanted by those tiny, yellowed black and white prints. Here is my grandpa in the 30's - I had never realized what a dapper young man he was... http://www.flickr.com/photos/38858797@N00/4966986923/

[Larraine]

Every time I come to this site, I go away inspired. I also love to print my photos. So far I've been stowing them away in shoeboxes. However, I am planning on doing some scrapbooking pages with them. This summer has been a flurry of study as I try to learn a new skill so I can get a job so I can really indulge my passion for photography!

[kristin]

200 in your hands prints fomr nyc?!?!? good for you mere! i am drooling a little over that idea and smiling imagining you thumbing through them all over and over. XO! and thanks for inclusing my memory lane. i will have to go dig one up today and scan a new one just for you.

[Melissa M.]

I document my family's lives too....photos, wall collages, framed prints, albums. I LOVE looking at the results of my photography obsession!

[Brooke]

There's so many old photos I can't get my hands on - mostly because my aunt and uncles don't want to part with them for a few days. So I've been sorting through the photos I do have and this one is a favorite: http://www.flickr.com/photos/shutterboo502/4271474541/in/set-72157622545609130/. Me and my mom. It's going to get blown up very soon to grace my wall.

[Puna]

Oh Meredith, you want me to print all of those things that I wanted to print up. I share my photos digitally but it's not the same for my mother-in-law who likes to hold them in her hands. This is my impetus.

http://lifesignatures.org/wordpress/category/photography/page/2/

[Aly Sev]

My maternal grandmother died when my mother was 21 (9 years before I was born). Even though I never got to meet her, I've grown to know her through old photos and a scrapbook my great-grandmother made for her. Here's one of the photos of her that I cherish most: http://www.flickr.com/photos/funshinealy/4887697727/

[Gail]

My family were not photographers and I have few old family pictures...but I did blog once about some old photos of my mother at two years old which must have been taken by a friend of the family...http://picturingtheyear.blogspot.com/2009/07/4th-of-july.html...I have to admit that I have not been printing out enough of my own photos since I received a digital camera in 2002!

[Michel]

oh man printing photos is a thing of the past for me until recently. I miss that rush of opening the envelope in my car after I dashed out of the photo finishing place. I also have been missing the written word as of late so I got some postcards printed. I have been randomly sending them out over the last few weeks.

http://michelfeist.squarespace.com/wishful-thinking/2010/8/7/i-am-pretty-blessed-34-years-long.html

[Gail]

Just fixing the link I left on my earlier comment:)...my mother on the 4th of July...
http://picturingtheyear.blogspot.com/2009/07/4th-of-july.html

[Dotti]

My family members are scattered far and wide but I'm fortunate that they're all willing to scan and share precious family photos. Consequently, I have a good-sized treasure trove. The attached photo of my grandmother is sorely in need of restoration, but it's precious nontheless. Isn't she beautiful?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/48337138@N04/4967541283/

[damiec]

I'm the one who sits in the attic poring over the contents of shoe boxes of old photos too. But I didn't print at all during the entirety of my recently finished 365. Recently I've been looking back and printing out favorites - I even hung some on the wall this weekend.

A number of years ago I unearthed my parents old slides, and had some of those printed. I felt like I'd discovered buried treasure every time I picked up a few snapshots from before I was born from the developer. Here's one of my favorites.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/22487105@N06/4716689833/

[Kat]

I used to print all my photos... then I started digital scrapbooking so I stopped... now I'm just photographing so I don't print much. Thanks for the reminder to PRINT them too!

[Jim Pryts]

Great Suzie ! Keep it up.

I wrote a poem about my job as a photo restorer. It goes liek this, and it was a great ice breaker for new clients:

What do we do when we restore the faded photographs of old?
We clean the glasses of Father Time, so his story can be told.

And when we reframe Grandpa's picture and hang it in it's place,
in the sunny alcove next to Grandma's antique vase,

We can watch our children grow, remembering the love
that Gram and Gramps still has for them in heaven up above.

- Jim Pryts-

[spread your wings]

I cherish old photos and luckily my mom was good about keeping old photos. My parents just celebrated their 59th wedding anniversary this past weekend and this is one that my brother blew up really large (30 x 20) for them. I love it.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/autumnsun/4968127489/

[Bet Rank]

My Dad passed away on the 22nd of last month and photos have become even more important to me. My brother, sister and I were packing things/cleaning things for my Mom because she'll be moving in with her kids. The one thing that has helped us get through each day since then has been the photos we keep finding. Treasures from not only our past but of the days when my parents were just a couple. Together we're going to scan all of the photos and create keepsake books that we can pass on to our own children.

[cindy]

i'm hopeless with printing. i made a blurb book for the first year i had a dslr and i hope to do it again - i'm in year two. here's one that will be included - http://www.flickr.com/photos/71443419@N00/4797773436// i admire your discipline!

[Christine]

Great post! and great site

www.mariechristinephotography.blogspot.com

[Ashley]

I loved the post.. I love going through my grandparents old photos and seeing pictures of my parents and grandparents at such a young age. I have boxes albulms and my wall is splattered with pictures i've taken of my babies

Here is a favorite, its not the best quality of photo but its of my babies and shows how much she loves her little brother
http://www.flickr.com/photos/40383774@N07/4969194483/

[Playcrane]

Yep. I definitely don't print out photos like I used to. I too miss the excitement of opening that package of pics or visiting family or friends I haven't seen in awhile and hear them say--let me see your pictures!

[Jo]

My maternal grandfather looooved his Polaroid. Any camera he could get his hands on really. My favorite pasttime when I was younger was going to my grandparent's house and going through their big garbage bag full of photos. Yes, garbage bag, but they were all there. My mother is a huge picture taker too and the bug has gotten passed down to me. And yes, I print everything out. I don't understand the concept of taking pics and just keeping them on your camera or computer. I like pulling an album off a bookshelf whenever the mood strikes and going through our pics. So do guests that come over. My albums are pulled out often. It is time consuming and I get backed up sometimes (life was easier when you could drop off your roll of film and pick up your pics in an hour, lol) but I love doing it. I'm also obsessed w writing names and dates on the back of pics. Drives me crazy to find an old pic of a baby and have no clue who it is, lol.

[Diane]

Thankfully there is someone else out there like me who TREASURES and actually prints out photographs. I still have oodles on my hard drive but I definitely print my photos out so I can hold them, treasure them, share them, and have them forever –- not lost in a hard drive crash or to be unable to access one day as technology advances. A photo is a treasure, if its in print -- I agree!!

[Trude]

I store them all kinds of ways! Printing really depends. I did digital scrapbooking for about 3 years, really haven't done any at all this year because I'm so much more immersed in photography and keeping up with it is hard enough. So I have albums full of those printed pages. For last year's 365, I ordered prints from Snapfish through Flickr (NEVER do it again! So awful!) and put them in albums with my own handwritten notes next to each one, because I appreciate my grandmother's old albums, with her handwriting everywhere, so much. But this year I did the math and it's cheaper to do a giant Blurb book of my 365 photos and descriptions than it is to order separate prints, so that's what I've started doing. :) I'll do prints for vacations and such, but otherwise it's all digital - Flickr, my blog, and Facebook.

[Trish]

For the sake of efficiency, I use digital scrapbooking (CM) software, then print the albums (with documentation) for our family memories. I have been doing this for about 5 years now (when I got my first digital camera) and have kept the albums much more up-to-date. Right now I only have photos from November onward not printed in some format. (and they will be printed by October 2010)

I do miss the old school feel of the photo in my hand, and when I have a really special shot will print it, just because.

[kristin]

a little late mere, but here is my memory lane this week. 2003, pre kellen and casey, 4 glorious days on peacham pond vt. everything was so peaceful and happy...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/14811117@N02/4975861130

[Simone]

I loved this article. I have become the family photographer.

I've stopped printing photos and I'm scared to death that I may loose all the memories if my hard drive fails, sure. I have some in web galleries.

One of the items on my life list is to make photo books with all of the photos I have, so that I can I leave something tangible for my granddaughter to show her children years from now.