We don’t like to be the bearers of bad news… Heck, who does?! But someone has to break the ice, so we’ll do it because we care about your family’s legacy. The thing is…
There’s no such thing as a digital heirloom.
The harsh reality of the 21st century is that digital images can and will fail more often than you think. They are not “archival” and will not necessarily stand the test of time. Digital images are essentially the “negatives” of digital photography and they need to be printed to become a tangible heirloom that WILL stand the test of time.
Whether you’ve stored your photos in the cloud, put them on Facebook or Instagram, or even backed them up to a hard drive, or done all of the above, digital images just aren’t a guarantee. Hard drives fail, and digital files can become corrupted and even lost completely. Facebook and Instagram are owned by Facebook and are not guaranteed to be here forever. Technology is constantly changing, and it’s getting harder and harder to keep up with it or know for certain that our media storage will remain accessible.
Check out these mind-blowing statistics from Professional Photographers of America during their nationwide survey:
- 67% of survey respondents store their photos solely on a computer or phone
- Less than 33% of people actively back up photos and data on their phones
- 70% of people do not have photo albums
- 42% of people no longer print photos at all
- 53% of people haven’t printed a photo in 12+ months
These statistics are only growing in numbers year by year. We are losing our photographic history and don’t even realize it. The only way to protect our memories and preserve this generation’s history is to print our photographs. Would you like the future generations of your family to be able to find the photographs of our generation? I would like my grandchildren and great grandchildren to find and enjoy ours!
This is what we do in our family and what I recommend for yours:
We back up all of our personal images in multiple places: 2 external hard drives AND an online cloud space that can be shared and accessed between all of us. We also print our favorite pictures, then label them with a date and place, and put them in a shoebox. This way, they can be found, someday in the future if digital pictures are not accessible and/or if people don’t know they exist. (How would they know?) I hope the photo boxes will be a sort of “time capsule” similar to my own grandma and grandpa’s attic, where the family treasures were found. My family loves to look at the old pictures of not only themselves but the photographs of past generations that I’ve found in my grandparent’s attic.
Another very important reason to print your favorite photographs is to enjoy them right now! There is something special about a tangible printed image that you can touch, whether it is on your wall, in a desktop frame, in an album on your coffee table, or even in a pretty box in the living room. I keep a box of my favorite photographs for the current year in a cute box on the living room table where we can pull them out and enjoy them. Those will eventually go into my “Time Capsule” boxes to make room for new pictures.
We challenge you to take this step in preserving your family history! We hope you will consider backing up your photos and storing them somewhere other than on your phone and on Facebook. We also hope you will print your favorite family memories to enjoy and cherish forever. As Professional Photographers of America says:
“Don’t put all your memories in one basket on the cloud.”
We couldn’t have said it better.
JEAN JOHNSON PORTRAITS
LIFESTYLE PHOTOGRAPHER | PERSONAL ARTIST | FAMILY HISTORIAN
www.jjshotme.com | 425.681.8390 | jean@jjshotme.com
Serving as family portrait photographers for families in Sammamish, Issaquah, Snoqualmie, Redmond, Bellevue, Kirkland, Mercer Island, North Bend, Carnation, Woodinville, and the greater Seattle area.
Jean Johnson, Jean Johnson Portraits
Jean is the owner and lead photographer at Jean Johnson Portraits (JJSHOTME), a local portrait studio. We are print and product based photographers who work with families through all seasons of life to create heirloom art for their homes. We believe photography is an art form that connects history, legacy, and relationship all by freezing a moment in time.
