Family photo albums cannot be replaced by digital files

We are moving closer and closer to a digital world – and this includes the photographic arena.

Digital cameras are great and have been around for years. The let us see what our pictures look like immediately rather than wait to have film developed. The main problem with them is something that is obvious – pictures, or more precisely lack of them.

People are taking digital pictures and keeping them in their computer. Their primary tool is their iPhone or Android phone, which makes it easy to snap a photo and store it. When was the last time you had printed a photo you took with your smartphone? Never? I don’t think I ever have.

Pictures stay in digital files

Granted, printing is still done, but it seems that the vast majority of pictures say on a computer in a digital file.

I watched a video today about pictures. One point made was when your house is burning down, one of the first things you want to retrieve are your pictures. You retrieve your pictures in photo albums.

My whole life is documented in the photo albums I have on a shelf in my house. Sure, I don’t pick those albums up on a regular basis and look at them. But I know they are there. And if I feel nostalgic, there’s no better way than to pick up a photo album and relive those memories from years ago.

I have pictures dating back to when I was a baby and just about every year since then. But you know what? My collection of pictures are more from years long ago than recent years. Is that because I stopped taking pictures? It’s not because I stopped making pictures. It’s because I stopped having pictured printed. They are all in my computer and not in photo albums.

Maybe that’s not a bad thing, but it’s sure a lot easier to grab a photo album and reminisce than to turn on your computer and search through digital files. When your house is burning down and you are limited in what you can grab before you get out? I think you’ll grab your photo albums before you grab your digital files.

Let’s print our digital files

So what should we do? I think we need to print our pictures and put them in photo albums – especially for special events. It’s clear that today’s brides and grooms want digital files. Most don’t care about photo albums. As long as you hand over that DVD of photos or send that online gallery, they’re happy. I’m guessing those photos stay digital and most don’t make prints.

So I encourage you to make prints from your digital files. Make photo albums. If you’re getting married, make sure and have a photo album made with your wedding pictures. If it’s not for yourself, consider you’re future children. They’ll have much more fun looking through a tangible photo album than computer files.