6.13.2022

Your photos are print-worthy!

Whether they are photos from your photo session or photos from your home camera or phone, they are print-worthy! Your images should be framed and hung up in your hallway, made into a canvas for your dining room, displayed in your office, and able to be flipped through in your living room.   We have so many options available to us today to print our images, but it can be tricky to have the time to do it. And once we get behind, it can be so difficult to catch up with the process. Don't let yourself feel stress about it though - we can start somewhere.

Here are three print-products I love and methods that I use and recommend to be sure my photos are printed regularly, on display to be enjoyed, and digitally backed up so I can hold on to the moments forever.

1. Holiday Gift of an Annual Family Album:

Each year,  I work on a Christmas gift for my family of a photo album of the whole year - but it is never the year we're still finishing but the year before. I happen to use Shutterfly for these albums, but you can print anywhere you'd like. My albums are usually over 100 pages so I have it done as early as I can in the year and wait for the Unlimited Free Pages coupon to be released. That makes about a $200 difference in my experience.

I wrap that puppy up and everyone takes time on Christmas day to look through the year before. It is such a wonderful gift!

2. Keeping Photos Organized:

I use SmugMug for my business Website and for their amazing photo storage that allows my clients to purchase prints and keepsakes and have them shipped right to their own homes. But even if I didn't have my own business, I would still use SmugMug for just my personal photos. Here's why they're amazing!

They are a small company and really care about their clients. They have a help line and a support team that I can email whenever I have questions. (help@smugmug.com)

They care about preserving memories. I trust that they'll never lose my images. How do I know? Once they bought another photo company called Picturelife that had dissolved just so that that company's customers wouldn't lose their images. Here's a podcast that tells all about it.

I have my phone set up to auto-upload photos to SmugMug. I have it set to only upload when I'm using WiFi. It organizes my photos according to month and year. It makes finding and transferring them a breeze for when I make albums. I can also have my husband's photos go to the same account so I'm not hunting everywhere for images when I go to make my annual album.

I can order prints and have items shipped right to me. This is even true with a non-professional account. It is so easy!

I can share links of photos of my kids with grandparents. If I use a mobile link, it puts a little app on their phone where they can easily click and open the gallery to show their own friends and enjoy a slideshow of their grandkids. I love it!

I can also make folders organized based on themes and have images in two places at the same time. Say a photo is in a folder for October of 2012. But, I've created a folder called "Halloween Across the Years." That cute image of my husband dressed up like Robin to go along with our son who dressed as Batman is now collected into the other gallery. It makes it easy to find and print all of them at the same time! Incidentally, you can see our cute Halloween photos in this blog!

If you're interested in using this amazing platform to store, share, and print your photos, you can use this link to get started. I get a small discount on my own annual costs if others use it to get started on an account, and I appreciate your using it to help me out! The service is only $9 per month for a family basic plan. I think that is a great deal!

3. Canvas Displays in my home:

Life was sweet at this stage. I look up at these boys and they smile at me and I smile back at them.

While I do have more recent photos displayed of our family and of the children, these will forever be my favorite 2 canvases. I love to remember their little faces at these precise ages. These canvases don't get updated in my house. I have that wooden frame between them that has a little clothesline feature where I can change out their most recent photos or easily change the printed ones in the mini frames. I also have other spots in the house where their photos get updated more frequently.

If you'd like to print a canvas from your session with me, email me to get started. They're so affordable and quite durable. I've learned that this is important with a house full of boys!

I want to encourage all of my readers to finish this up by ordering one of your own precious memories in some printed form. It is so easy to lose files or just lose track of where we store them. Always be sure to store your digital files in 3 locations to prevent loss of image files but printing is another great way to back up your images and be sure that you're living your life and passing by them each day, smiling at the moments you want to hold on to forever.

What am I about?

My business is Photographic Memories by Ann M. Bickel, LLC and is about providing art education opportunities in the Altoona community as well as portraiture photography work. As a creative person, I like to dabble in other areas that allow me to bear witness to others' lives and explore what brings us all together. Though If you would like to follow along, you can check out my last blog article or join my newsletter!