I Believe In Treasure Boxes Filled With Photos

I was in 8th grade when our teacher gave us the assignment to dig back into our family history, past the people that we had met. Mom brought out this box filled with photos and other little memories – all I needed to do was dig in.That was the day I found out dad had been married before – “Mom, this looks like dad getting married, but that’s not you, right?"That was the day I found out I had a fourth cousin, even if he had only been with us for a few short hours.This past week my parents were visiting from Finland, and mom brought a pile of photos with her. Grandpa had taken these images, and I had never even seen most of them. I was thrown into the same eye-opening experience as before – "Wait, my sister had a squint that had to be operated on?"I got to thinking about some parents that I've worked with, who wish they had their childhood images as digital files. I wish I had more of my adulthood images as prints!You might wonder why bother printing anything at all, since today we have the means to store thousands upon thousands of photos on our laptops and phones.Truthfully, I’m worried about what will happen to photos in the future, even if they are backed up on multiple hard drives. Will iPad 27.0 be able to show your photos from today to your grandkids? Or what if your toddler knocks over a cup of coffee tomorrow, destroying your laptop?Assuming that image file formats will stay the same for decades to come, who will have the space to keep backing up your photos onto their own hard drives when you pass?Having the digital files is a great way to look back at today for the next few years. Photo albums and boxes of prints are the best way to go for your favorite images, because no gadgets are required to access the images.Even better – put your most treasured images up on the wall so you can see them every day!Since digital images are basically free, it's not a huge investment to make sure you have a few images printed out. Think of the good old days when you had to pay for developing rolls and rolls of film, without being sure about how they even turned out.I’ve been consistently printing around 10-20 images a month this year, just enough to give a good glimpse into our lives. I collect them in a shoe box in envelopes according to the season (spring, summer, fall, and California winter). I also have a wire going along the wall above my office desk, where I can switch out images whenever I please.Because I know first hand how easily files go forgotten (or lost!) on hard drives, all of my session packages include a photo book (unless you want to switch that to other prints products). Your kiddos should have these memories, regardless of the file formats or gadgets that are relevant when they grow up.