Nowadays it’s pretty common for people not to print their photographs, unless it’s for something specific such as a framed picture for the home or a present for someone you love. Most of the time, pictures are either taken, saved, viewed or shared on phones, tablets and computers. But maybe this is something that’s going to change again.
This process certainly isn’t fail-safe. What if your device, with all your stored pictures, gets stolen? Or breaks? You’ll lose the photos forever. What if the digital storage system you use (such as Dropbox) has a blip? Or shuts down?
Vint Cerf, the boss at Google, has pointed out something else that you may not have thought of as well. Programs that open the pictures will become outdated and the images won’t be recoverable. These are all things that need to be taken into account when storing pictures digitally.
These reasons – and the fact, of course, that people still like to hold pictures in their hands and enjoy their tangible quality – have resulted in more and more people going back to printing photographs and creating photo albums to admire and share. It’s like we’re going back in time, isn’t it?
But it really is lovely. There’s something so wonderful about showing your grandparents snaps from your holiday to Australia or reminiscing over old family pictures. That’s something that’ll die out completely if people don’t print their photos – no longer will there be trunks of memories in the loft to make you smile when you stumble across the photos inside.
It’s not to say that technology should be a no-go when it comes to photos. The innovations in the digital world have led to all sorts of exciting prospects. These days you can print on a variety of surfaces and in really cool, unusual formats. Print memories on mugs, pillows, T-shirts, lamps, phone cases and more. There are companies out there which specialise in this kind of printing, who offer a number of different options, such as PhotoBox. Their photo books are particularly wonderful as well – a modern approach to photo albums, these books can be personalized to suit exactly what you’re after and are great for things like weddings, proms and holidays.
With the fantastic cameras available to us and apps that make us embrace our inner photographer such as Instagram, we’re taking pictures at every opportunity – of our meals, our pets, our outfits and even our faces… selfie lovers, we’re looking at you.
Because we take so many pictures, it’d be crazy to print every single one of them. But we hope you’ve been inspired to print the photos that count. It seems that the traditional approach might be the best one to take going forward.