Legacy is not leaving something for people. It's leaving something IN people. 

-Peter Strople

Some experts warn that future generations may enter a DIGITAL DARK AGE as hardware and software become obsolete.

As professional photographers, we must be at the forefront of encouraging our clients to purchase printed portraits or risk losing an entire generation's record that they even existed.

Do you remember these items that came and went, seemingly at the blink of an eye...

• Compaq flashcards

• Floppy disc drives

• Zip drives

• CDs

• DVDs

• Etc

That's just naming a few!

This is why we are PRINT ARTISTS! 

The print is stable and will preserve our work for generations.

Family portraits and family albums are so important in creating an environment in the home where children feel loved and cherished.

They see themselves as part of a tribe. It is an unspoken covenant of love and protection. 

Unfortunately, many photos are now simply one of thousands on a phone...and NEVER GET PRINTED.

Beautiful, stable, professional imagery is often replaced with blurry, badly exposed, poorly done phone snaps...and so, that moment is now lost for any future generations to see.

This is a profoundly sad loss for families.

In conclusion...

In a survey by Quora, when participants were asked the question, "Why do we take or want our pictures taken?" The answer was as follows:

"We would like those moments to last, to remember them and to share them with others. We take photos to satisfy that deep desire of having life memories. First and foremost, we take photos simply for sake of keeping and reminiscing those moments again, to feel nostalgic again. YOu know, sometimes, it feels great being in nostalgia, longing for those bittersweet memories. We love only once, time flies and those moments, once gone, will never come back. We cannot celebrate our 18th birthday again or get our first kiss again; they happen once in our life and hence definitely deserve preservation."

Actually holding a physical printed image sparks nostalgia, facilitates storytelling, and strengthens memories and connections in a way that looking at images on a screen cannot. 

Printing images also preserves them for the long term, while digital files carry the risk of being lost or deleted over time.

So while digital photos certainly have great usefulness, when we wish to visually imprint our bonds and tell our family's interwoven story, professionally printing and displaying cherished portraits retains profound significance difficult to replicate with even the highest-resolution iPhone.