Approximately 4.7 billion photos are taken worldwide every day, according to recent statistics compiled by Photutorial. We each take about 20 photos per day for the average North American, which is more than the average number for any other content in the world. Bottom line: We have A LOT of photos!
Historically, which also includes the earlier portion of many of our own lives, photos needed to be developed (printed) in order for us to view and admire them. But with the technology that we have today, we no longer need to print photos to actually see the photos. We can share them on social media to show others, and we can scroll through our phones to look back and admire our photos. Technology has made viewing and sharing photos easier than ever! Conceivably, this has resulted in fewer and fewer photos being printed. What if we told you, though, that there are serious benefits to continuing printing your photos?
According to licensed psychologist David Krauss, displaying family photos in the home helps boost children’s self-esteem. Viewing family pictures digitally instead of in printed form is not subconsciously ideal for anyone, especially for children and their development. Displaying printed family portraits in the home gives children a sense of belonging and security that digital images can’t give. Krauss is the co-author of “Photo Therapy and Mental Health”, published in 1983. This book was one of the first of its kind to encourage the use of printed photographs in mental health therapy. (Check out more of what David Krauss and other professionals had to say about the correlation between printed photos and self-esteem on designaglow.com.)
Printing family photos and having them in tangible form is insurance! Though modern technology is great and allows us to store our photos on our phones, hard drive, social media, and the Cloud (to name a few), these programs and devices haven’t been around for very long, and technology is constantly changing. Some day, these devices and programs will probably advance into something better, and we will either lose our digital images or need to transfer hundreds of digital photos onto a new platform. Not to mention, images can be accidentally deleted and devices/online storage companies can crash, taking digital images away unexpectedly. Don’t get us wrong, these modern ways that we have of storing our digital images are great! But technology, though advanced, can still be unpredictable.
Having images in both digital and print form is a great way to assure that you’ll always have them! You probably have hundreds, if not thousands, of photos on your phone or tucked away into an online storage space. It’s a good idea to print all images that you actually want to keep in at least some form, but for the most precious family photographs that you have, we recommend printing on a larger format to display in your home.
Family photos create a warm decor. We like to show off and talk about things that are important and meaningful to us, and what we put on display in our homes oftentimes tells someone what matters most to us. And what greater importance than our loved ones? Displaying family photography on the walls and shelves of your home shows your own family and your guests that this is a household full of people who love each other, giving off a warm, cozy, and welcoming feeling! And as we mentioned earlier, if you have children, it shows them just how important they are as a part of your family unit, giving them a sense of belonging.
Displaying family photos allows you to share and remember your family history in a way that digital images lack. Putting any photo on display is a constant reminder of that day, that place, and those people. When photos only reside on phones or in photo albums that are tucked away in storage, photos can be forgotten or lost. Whether it’s a photo of your family get-together from last week or a rare photo from 1902 of generations past, consider putting it on display to better cherish and share those moments in time! If you are interested in creating a wall display of your family history from a time before images were digital, you can enlarge those special photos by scanning them into high-quality digital files and printing them onto glossy tiles or canvas prints.
So the next time you have a family photography session, consider taking a few of your favorites from the photoshoot and display in your home to admire, share, and remember for years to come!
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