If you were born before the year 2000 you will remember photography before the digital age. The first photographic print was the heliography invented around 1824 by Nicephore Niepce. The image was accomplished with bitumen of Judea spread on a silver plate after an exposure time of several days. Let’s jump 195 years into the future and we are in a digital age of photography where even your cell phone can take better pictures than a Digital SLR camera from 12 years ago.
Today’s generation won’t understand that feeling of going to the store and purchasing some film for a point and shoot camera. Taking that film and loading it into the camera burning through the 24 images photographing all that is important in your life. Then driving back to the store with that anxious feeling of wanting to know how your pictures are going to turn out waiting for the film to be developed. It was like Christmas morning, awaiting the ok nod or smile from Mom and Dad, to open your gifts that were placed under the Christmas tree. Once the filmed was developed and you got to look through them, you saw several images that you love, compelling you to purchase frames to display these images in your room, your home, or to give as a gift. These pictures represent a memory of a moment in time you will never be able to recreate the same way. Having those prints was a way to share with all your friends and family that moment you were proud of. It allowed them the opportunity to be a part of that moment even though they weren’t there, and the opportunity for the story behind the picture.
Since the year 2000 technology as advanced so fast that we moved from film cameras to digital cameras. In 19 years, we have almost forgotten the true art form of using film cameras to capture pictures and the whole process of developing. Even as a photographer the instant gratification of being able to look at an image right after taking it and deciding to keep it or not has made me at times forget my roots of photography. With the digital age there is a direct link now from cell phone cameras to social media. Social media is this generations perceived form of “print” media creating a disconnect on the value of the art form of photography and investing in printing images. If you are anything like me when you take a picture with your phone you end up forgetting all about it or it gets lost with the hundreds of other photos you take. As an artist, we want to capture the moments that you cherish. The moments that you want to share and never forget. It’s ok to share with all to see on social media, but its also ok to print it for the intimacy of your home or room, and for those friends and family to see when they walk in.
When you purchase the sessions for photography and then the prints to reminisce on the moments you created. Think of it as you are purchasing the ability to re-live the laughter and the love of that moment. The ability to stop what you are doing and remind yourself that in the business of life and work, its ok to stop what you are doing and capture special moments with the ones you love and never want to forget.
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