A photo’s purpose is far from finished once the shutter has been pressed — after all, if we never really look at our images, then what are they for? Digital technology has made photography easier, allowing photographers to go ahead and take dozens of images to nail the perfect shot. But while digital is a great way to capture images, it’s not always the best way to store or display those moments. Here are five more reasons to print your photographs.
Photographs are irreplaceable.
Once you take an image, you can’t capture that exact same second in time again. Sure, you may be able to imitate a landscape photo again, but even with landscapes, changes in the weather and seasons means that second image won’t be the same as the first. This is especially true for images of people — we’re constantly growing up, growing old and changing in other subtle ways. An image’s irreplaceable nature only increases with time.
Print your photos because, if you loose those photos, you can’t replace them.
Images aren’t meant to be temporary.
Photographer Missy Mwac compares never printing photos to floral bouquets — if you never print your photos, you’re only enjoying them temporarily while they circulate your feeds. Printing your photos is like moving from a bouquet to a potted plant — they’ll be around much longer. (Of course, the metaphor only goes so far, it’s pretty hard to forget to water your pictures, so chances are, your printed photos will last way longer than the fern wilting on your windowsill).
Print your photos because, in electronic form, pictures are only temporary enjoyment.
You don’t truly see an image until you see it in print.
An image on a screen and an image on paper or canvas are entirely different. Yes, the same details will be there, but the quality of an image is best on a print. That’s when the true colours surface, when the details are easy to spot, and when you stop being distracted by the backlit glare of a screen.
Print your pictures because, on paper, you can truly see your images.
Printed images don’t suffer from hard drive failures.
Loosing images from a hard drive failure is devastating. Sure, you should also back up photos on cloud storage, but creating prints is one more layer of protection from loosing those memories. Printed photos aren’t hacked, accidentally formatted or lost in a technical failure.
Print your photos because the digital files may not always be there.
Printing images forces you to analyse the shots to find the best one.
As great as printed photos are, you’re not going to print every single image. That negates the benefits of digital, where you don’t have to pay to hold a bad photo, but only the best ones. Printing your photo automatically forces to to take a closer look at your work when choosing the images to make the final cut into print. Analysing our own work is something photographers should do often to grow, but it’s something we often forget to do.
Print your photos because your future photos will be even better because of it.