Why You Should Be Printing Your Photos Right Now.
- emilymacneilphotog
- Apr 17, 2020
- 4 min read
If you are like me these days, quarantine has gifted you with more time on your hands than you've had in ages. While the majority of my time is dedicated to running after my now mobile seven month old, I like to take advantage of nap times and bed times to have some me time. Unfortunately, there are only so many hours of Netflix one can watch before you feel your brain cells screaming for something more productive to do (I don't care how binge worthy Tiger King is, there is a limit).
I recently freed myself from the monotony of "are you still watching?" by breaking open my Canon Selphy Compact Photo Printer (I'll leave a link below if you want to price one out on amazon) and finally started filling the photo album I purchased before Thomas was born. I kept thinking to myself, I have all these beautiful photos of my son trapped on my phone and it is a travesty to have to scroll through them every time someone asks to see them. Sure it is super convenient when you run into someone while your are out and about to have the photos right there in your pocket, but in all honesty those precious moments deserve to be freed from your device and on display. Hopefully by the time you've finished reading this article I'll have convinced you to get in the habit of printing your photos too.
The first reason I started printing my photos, and probably the most obvious, is that it gives you an excuse to make some space on your device. Photos, be it quick snaps, or professional shots I downloaded from my Lightroom cloud, take up the majority of the storage space on my phone. On older devices, this can get frustrating fast. This year I made the resolution to print more of my photos so I can delete them (after backing them up on Google photos of course) and free up more space. Not only does it keep my phone running more smoothly, it gives me peace of mind knowing that I have hard copies of those precious memories in albums if anything were to happen to my device.
Photos make great gifts! This year for Christmas I made albums of Thomas's first three months and gifted them to his grandparents, and great-grandparents. It was a simple, yet meaningful gift that was very affordable, only costing the price of the albums and the refills of ink and paper for my Canon Selphy printer. If you don't have your own printer, using the photo kiosk at Walmart or Staples is just as or even more affordable.
My third reason to get your photos printed will appeal to any home decorator or someone trying to change up their space without buying a bucket of paint. Photos make great home decor. Whether you put them in a frame up on a wall or stick them to the fridge with magnets, printed photos are a fabulous way to make any space more homey. When I was in University, I always marveled at the creative displays my floor mates would come up with to put their personal flare on their dorm rooms. Something as simple as photos and sticky-tac transformed their small cookie cutter dorms into unique homes away from home. For years, my own mother had a wall in the kitchen dedicated to our favorite family photos held up by nothing more than tape, no fancy frames needed.
Nostalgia. I don't know about you, but one of my favorite memories from childhood was going through old family albums. There is something truly magical about flipping through the pages of your grandma's photo albums, or an envelope of developed photos. The act of printing out a photo gives the image an entirely new meaning, even if it is a little out of focus. Suddenly that data trapped inside your phone is transformed into a tangible memory of the past. Proof that your parents had lives before you came along ;). I still think back on days when my brothers and I would go through old photos of our family home that were taken a hundred years ago and seeing how much the property has changed now. Or looking at photos of when my parents and aunts and uncles were children and marveling at how long it took Dad to grow into his ears (a trait he has past onto his grandson). This is an experience I truly look forward to sharing with my own son as I start documenting his milestones and saving them in an album he may one day share with his own children.
Finally, we are in the middle of a pandemic. If you have the opportunity to print your photos at home, then go ahead and #staytheblazeshome and work on your own album. If you have kids, get them involved. Make photo collages for their rooms, or better yet, get them to make an album of all the the ways they spent their time during lock-down that they can show their grandparents when you can finally send them to grandma's again.
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