J. Love Photography had the opportunity to create an album for a couple who renewed their wedding vows after 20 years of marriage recently in  Hawaii. The photographer gave them a CD with loads of images on it and my prospective client had neither the time nor the interest in figuring out what to do with them. I stepped in and created a beautiful album for her of those images, images of mine, and even images she had taken on their trip. She gave it to her husband as a surprise for his birthday a few months later. I scanned images of their original wedding and faintly placed them within the album where they weren’t obvious, but almost gave the effect of a ‘memory’. Their comments about the album I created for them renews my belief that images of important events in our lives with an album to grab and share and relive the moments is worth every penny we pay for them.

You might have seen the album I did similarly for a couple for their 50th wedding anniversary celebration. And I’ve done such albums for things like large family get-togethers, a woman’s journey into feeling beautiful again after having children, a group session of siblings, a baby’s first year, engagement sessions, and on and on. Many people buy a duplicate album for someone close to them as well, especially for weddings and baby’s first year. All of the album examples here are double page spreads.

If you are considering making the investment in professional portraiture, consider making an album of your own or having your photographer create one for you. If you feel like it’s too much extra to invest, many photographers, such as myself, have layaway plans. We understand and want to do what we can so that you can enjoy and share the art we created for you for years to come and not store it in a box or worse yet, never have any record of  the priceless moments in your life at all.

Several kids are rewarded yearly with their portrait on the wall all year when they have no cavities! We spend part of a day together with lots of kids having a good time as they entertain me with their spirited little selves. Sometimes I even talk the moms and dads into joining in.

Although I love them all, I posted two of my favorite No Cavity Club kid portrait that make me smile every time I see them! Kids are so funny aren’t they?

a family photo album (47%)

a pet (25%)

an iPhone or Blackberry (9%)

A favorite car (5%)

A big screen TV (3%)

Our family photos are mostly being stored on computers, rarely printed, no longer put in albums, and ultimately not looked at very often!  We are taking more photographs than ever before in history… and we aren’t doing much to care for these family photos for future generations of our own families.  Ask any computer technician how many people they work with who have lost ALL of their family photos on their hard drive that crashed because they had no backup.  It is common today, unfortunately.  And the statistics in restoring those family photos from a crashed hard drive  are painfully low.  

Let’s start creating photo albums again.  Years and years from now, no one is going to feel a CD or DVD pull at their heart strings as they rummage through old memorabilia!  But if they were printed images of family members, friends, pets, vacations, and cherished memories, these tangible photos would be little priceless pieces of the past that family would hang onto, preserve, pass down.  This is what they were talking about in the survey, NOT our hard drives. 

I briefly touch upon how I am guilty of not printing family snapshots and how I’m turning a new leaf in a post entitled Capturing The Moments That Matter Most.  It’s been great fun to go through my personal photos, choose the ones that make me smile, print them, and store them in my acid-free box that I created marked “Our Family 2010.”  Finally.  Our friends and family are enjoying the little capture moments on our coffee table. 

Now I’m hoping I can encourage more of you to create tangible treasures of those scads of images you’ve left unattended on your hard drives!  Photograph, back up, burn, AND PRINT!

I look forward to watching these little men grow.  I continue to create portraits of little boy after little boy in the studio!  Are there any little girls out there, folks?  I have great tutus. But the boys just won’t look good in them, you know?!  LOL.

I end up spending so much time with families like this when they come in to the J. Love Photography studio.  I don’t wear a watch, I don’t have a clock here.  Time stands still.  We laugh, play, pose, try different things, and interact in a way that is enjoyable for everyone.  There is something about the tenderness we witness as photographers when parents come with their new babies. When they forget about us and just enjoy the moment, we make photographs like my favorite one below.  I can feel Lindsay’s gentle touch as she cradles Emerson and coos to him.  Can’t you?  Ahhhhhh. Love my job!