‘The Boy With No Pictures’

This is the title of a book that was to come out a number of years ago. No, I wasn’t the author, but when I saw it making the rounds on a kickstart fundraiser, I was intrigued. It was supposed to be the tale of a child who grows up cursed by some witch, to grow up suffering from no record of his existence. Maybe the climax was to be the point they figure out that they can print pictures as proof of his milestones? I don’t know. Sadly, it wasn’t published, as far as I’m aware. I wish it was though, because its content would have been just what many people needed.

We are the most photographed generation of all time. Yet many of us will have no pictures at all to show our descendants.

We live in a digital world. Every moment captured easily, on up to date devices, whose slim designs fit in our pockets, ready to snap, and share with the world. So naturally, accustomed as we are to digital images, most people who hire a photographer for professional images, will want those images digitally too. And I get that, oh I do! I need everything digitally too!

All these personal digital images of mine are neatly organised on hard drives, in order of date or event, and even backed up online. I get a sense of security from this. These are forever right?

Umm….. says who?

Everyone out there knows someone who has lost a memory card, corrupted a hard drive, or simply has no clue where their images are saved. It’s an awful feeling.

A computer technician who is an expert in the cyber world just made me frighteningly aware how much data is floating around the world, on disks, USBs, hard drives, and in the cloud, and it’s so easy for digital data to go missing. Remember 3½” floppy disks? yeah, me neither. Who says USB ports will even work in twenty years time? What happens if Dropbox goes bust on us? Or other cloud storage companies lose their data? No amount of monetary compensation or insurance will bring back our images, and our memories.

So here’s where I’m going with this. Print your pictures. Do it locally, print them online, print them at home, any which way! but get them printed and in albums, or hung on the wall. And don’t let them build up. It’s much harder to sort and file 5 years worth of pictures, than a few months worth.

Here’s a family memory from this summer.

Lots of laughter, messy hair, plenty imperfections, but it’s printed! The digital image is carefully backed up on my computer, you bet it is. But if technology fails us generations down the line, my child will show his grandchildren the print and say: ‘that’s me on the beach, with my siblings. Summer 2021’.

And finally, this is the reason my packages includes prints and products FIRST. Because those will stand the test of time. And if you don’t get them done right away, through labs that print them on archival quality products, they will never get done.

After that, you can add the digital images.

As an extra.

Because we all love our digital images.

return to the website