If your house catches on fire, what are the first things (not alive objects) that you'd back in and grab...? Though we're deeply in the age of technology, most people STILL respond with "my photos!" What this really translates to is: "My memories!"
All of us adults have photos lying around our house or our parents' houses from childhood- images shoved into old photo albums, picture frames, and wall art. We even still create instant physical photos on our own with things like Instax cameras with their cool, tiny colorful photos. These physical items hold intrinsic value to us: They're the embodiment of our memories.
Now-a-days we often create memories with cell phones or digital cameras uploaded to a computer and possibly social media, but often phones or computers break without us having "backed up" or saved our photos elsewhere! AND even worse: memory cards and computer memories can also digitally crash and completely lose all of their data without us having done anything wrong (no dropping them involved)! This is why physical photographs, albums, and wall art still exist. Digital art and photography is well and fine, but at the end of the day the most secure piece of memory, art, etc. is something you can hold and look at NOT on a screen. Studies have shown that tactile objects such as books elicit more absorption of information since they help us interact with them than say an EBook or photo album on an iPad does. Basically, you're more engaged when you look through physical things rather than internet screens.
We both have backgrounds and high professional educations in photography and have printed our own work by hand ourselves for at least 14 years. We've gone from printing our film and physical photographs in liquid in darkrooms by hand to using professional printers in our schools and our own home with our own papers and inks on giant, professional photography printers. We know what papers we love, we know what processes give us archival prints that last over 100 years, what kinds of prints can get wet without getting ruined, etc. We're professionals at this.
This is what made us choose to evolve years ago from a "Shoot and Burn" photography business to a "Full Service Photography Studio" and we've never looked back. We were tired of handing off our beautiful photos to clients on DVDs, USBs, and sent digital files and knowing for a FACT for years that they just sat on shelves not being touched while collecting dust. Photographs are meant to be printed well. And no... we don't mean printed at corporations like CVS. We mean printed professionally in a way that will make the photograph shine beautifully with the best inks and most importantly: Make the photographs and color LAST.
Not only do we believe in physical prints and give them out with EVERY single Session booked with us, but we also still believe in physical STUDIOS and offices for professional photographers. It's actually WHY we moved back to the Midwest: We wanted to be able to have a nice studio with space as well as a separate consultation office for clients to view product options while viewing all of their beautiful images! (We also even have a separate editing office!) Many photographers are absolutely amazing and do not need a studio, but until you've photographed feather jewelry outside or spent a literal entire week photographing hundreds of similar products and models, you don't know how necessary a studio is for a professional photographer! There're also other huge reasons that professional studios exist: They're indoors for when it decides to rain ALL year or snows, they have "even" lighting and we know what to expect, and they're in one established spot that a client can come to.
We hope this gave you some insight into why quality physical photographs are here to stay and why we deeply believe in and offer physical products as well as in-studio photography! It's amazing to be a full-service studio and we are so thankful that our clients come to us wanting quality, archival physical photographs that will last a literal lifetime. We feel so fortunate to do what we love and provide the best quality possible to our awesome clients.
Thanks for tuning in this Weekly Wednesday! We were out of town in Ohio for the weekend (whew! 11 hours in the car with our Greyhound dog!) and one of us just got pretty sick today, but we STILL created physical products for our clients (sickie didn't touch them) and even got around to applying to get some of our art into museums! Have a fantastic rest of your week and PLEASE for your sake and for your future generations make sure to have a professional photography studio photograph and print some amazing photographs of you and your family (or friends! or just yourself!) this year! It doesn't have to be by us, but we really do care that people save some quality photographs of their families and friends. Be honest: You're not going to print those crappy cell phone selfies and in this fast-paced day and age we all grow older and forget to have these fleeting moments captured (and then we get new phones and computers... and then the old photos are locked on obsolete and outdated technology!).