I just got back from Imaging USA - it is probably THE biggest event for professional photographers in the world. PPA (Professional Photographers of America) sponsors the event and this was my first year to go. I always attend our PPMA (Professional Photographer's of Mississippi/Alabama) conventions twice a year, but have never attended the "big one". It was very overwhelming, but VERY fun! I am an over thinker so I stressed on every detail from what to pack to which speakers to listen to. I tried to pick a good mixture of business and technical and how to improve my life in general! I heard Joel Grimes, got a book signed by Lindsay Adler, walked a lot of steps, and ate a lot of food! One of my big goals I set for myself this year is to blog more - so here I go :)
I would like to talk about the big print movement that PPA is heading up. One of the things that was really stressed is that the way we took (or the media in which we took) pictures even just 5 years ago is nearly obsolete. If you were a film photographer, it's getting harder and harder to find someone to develop that film (which was the main way of taking pictures up until recently), if you stored your digital prints on a floppy disk, you probably don't even have a way to print those pictures now. One of my cousins passed away this past summer and the most recent portrait he had made (and the one that was shown everywhere from his program to his tombstone) was a portrait done by me. We were just playing around in the studio and it took 30 seconds to take the picture, but he loved it because it was recent and he was happy. We had a good time "playing" - my whole family did - I took a lot of pictures that day! It really opened my eyes to the value of having a printed portrait in your hands. I'm sure he had a ton of "snapshots" on his phone, but how many of us even print those out? I always go back to the thought of what if my ancestors had not printed any pictures - those are some of my most treasured possessions - I love to see who I look like or imagine what their lives were like - it's history... it's MY history!!
So the next time you think about getting your session on "disc" instead of a professional print... are you really going to print them out? And if you do, are they going to be color corrected, printed on archival paper for generations to come to enjoy them? I definitely encourage you to take pictures, take lots and lots of pictures!! But I also encourage you to get that professional print that you can hang on your wall and proudly display! Contact me today to set up your session! I would love to be a part of your story!
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