We live in a world of instant - online - everything! From facebook to twitter, to online shopping, you name it! Everybody has a camera phone these days and they snap pictures of everything. I have a camera phone too and love it, but how many of those camera phone pictures ever make it to print and get a chance to hang on the wall? I think it's safe to say almost none! This is probably a good thing as the quality of these prints would not be great anyway.
So what does all this have to do with family portraits?
Earlier this week I spent about an hour with a wonderful family in a park near Riverside California. This is a family of seven, with five girls ranging from the ages of ten to twenty-three. Soon, all these girls will move out and have families of their own. Wouldn't it be sad if all they had were some phone camera pictures or a facebook album to look at? Can you be sure that facebook will still be around in ten years? What about those camera phone pics? Where are they? Will they be safe or accessible in twenty years from now?
When I was growing up there were no camera phones, in fact, there was no internet. What I do have from my youth are many wonderful albums and family portraits . Many of these pictures grace the walls of my home and occupy space on table tops. These pictures look just as good today as they did the day they were taken, and they will look just as good in twenty more years! And as time goes by, the value of these timeless family portraits becomes priceless!
So, is it worth getting the family together and spending an hour or so with a professional photographer? I think the answer is YES more now than ever before!
