Why Print Photographs?

We take more photographs than at any other time in history.

That's probably not much of a surprise. There's a very good camera in our pocket almost all the time. We photograph birthdays and vacations, but we also photograph Tuesday afternoon. The cat sleeping in a silly position. Something new we cooked for dinner. Our kids doing absolutely nothing remarkable. We're creating digital archives of our daily lives.

And that's wonderful.

If I want to see photographs from a family trip to Cape Cod, I can take out my phone, type "Cape Cod," and there they are. Hundreds of photographs, found in seconds. Thirty years ago, that would have seemed like magic. So this isn't an argument against digital photography. We love digital photographs. We take them every day.

But there's another question we think about all the time here at the bindery:

Where do the memories live?

When our family spent a week on Cape Cod, I took a hundred photographs. Maybe more. I didn't print a hundred photographs. I printed a dozen at our local camera shop.

Those twelve went into our family album, and something interesting happened over the years. When I think about that trip, those are the moments I remember. I remember the beach in one photograph. I remember what the kids were eating in another. I remember a particular afternoon because there's a photograph of it in the album.

There were undoubtedly other things we did that week. There are probably photographs of them somewhere on my phone or computer. I could find them if I went looking.

But the photographs we printed are the ones we've returned to. And, over time, they've become part of the way we remember the trip. Maybe we print photographs because they're important to us. But I think the reverse happens, too. Sometimes photographs become important to us because we printed them.

Choosing is part of remembering

One of the great advantages of digital photography is that we don't have to be selective. We can take another picture. And another. And five more just to make sure everybody's eyes are open. There's almost no penalty for taking too many photographs. 

Printing changes that. If you have 100 photographs from a vacation and decide to print twelve, you have to choose. Which twelve?

It's a small decision, but an interesting one. You're doing something more than selecting the best photographs. You're deciding which moments tell the story. And they aren't always the most beautiful pictures. Sometimes it's the photograph where somebody is making a funny face. Or the one taken at breakfast. Or a picture of the kids sitting on a porch doing nothing in particular.

Years later, that ordinary photograph might show you the old kitchen table, a favorite sweater, the dog lying underneath somebody's chair, or how young everyone looked. We never know which details we're going to miss someday.

Photographs are easy to find. Memories are harder to share.

Our phones have become remarkably good at finding photographs. Type a place, a date, or sometimes even a person's name and you can find pictures you haven't thought about in years. But finding photographs and sharing a memory aren't quite the same thing. 

A photo album works differently. Someone has already made the decisions. These are the photographs. This is the story. There's a beginning and an end. You can sit next to someone and look through it together. You can pass it across the table. And looking through an album tends to lead to conversation.

"Remember that place?"

"Look how little she was."

"I forgot about that."

"Whatever happened to that sweater?"

The photographs aren't just being viewed. They're prompting stories. That's something a photo album does particularly well.

A photograph becomes more than data, it becomes a memory

There's another change that happens when a photograph is printed. It becomes an object. You can hold it. Write a date on the back. Put it in a frame. Slip it into a birthday card. Hang it on the refrigerator. Put it into an album. The tangible is something so many - us included - are drawn to in this digital age. Digital photographs generally wait for us to go looking for them.

Printed photographs have a habit of finding us.

You don't have to print everything

If you have 12,000 photographs on your phone, the idea of doing something with them can feel a little overwhelming. So don't.

You don't need to organize your entire photographic life. You don't need to spend three weekends sorting files into folders. And you certainly don't need to print 12,000 photographs. Pick twenty. Print the pictures from one vacation. Print your favorites from last summer. Print a handful of photographs of your parents or your children or your friends. That's enough.

The remarkable thing about digital photography is that we no longer have to choose between keeping a hundred photographs and keeping twelve. We can do both. Keep the hundred. They're easy to store. They're easy to search. And someday you may be very glad you have them. But choose twelve, too.

Because digital photography is extraordinarily good at helping us capture our lives. Printing gives us a chance to decide which moments we want to carry with us.

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Where to Print Photos? One-Hour, photo lab, or online? Here's how we decide.

How to Mount Photos in a Paper Page Album  Simple ways to mount, arrange, and preserve photos in a paper-page album