Exist in Print…You Are Worth It!

Hey ladies! It’s my party, and I’ll cry if I want to!!!

Ok, I’m not REALLY gonna cry. But I AM a little sad right now. And that’s because, as I was looking through my childhood photo album just now, I realized there’s not many photos in it. And do you know why that is? Because when I was packing to move from Georgia to Texas last year, I was in a huge rush. I had procrastinated & hadn’t begun packing until just a few days before I had to be out of my apartment. I had a bedroom, living, & dining room set, and I was only taking what I could fit in my car!! Needless to say, I ran around like a mad woman throwing things into dumpsters, dropping things off at Goodwill, & selling things on Craigslist.

Me as an infant

In my hurry to rapidly downsize, one of the things I threw away was an entire box full of my childhood photos. Yes me – the photographer – threw away an entire box full of photos. And this folks, is why I’m sad. I didn’t realize the value of those photos. At the time, I was just in a hurry to get rid of everything I didn’t think was essential. I also probably didn’t take the time to sort through them because somewhere in the back of my head, I didn’t like how I looked. I always remember looking at photos of me and thinking I was a cute baby who grew up to be an ugly kid. It wasn’t until nearly the end of my twenties that I had a makeover shoot that I looked at a photo of myself and thought I was pretty.

Whatever the reason, the only photos of my childhood I have left are the ones I had taken the time back in high school to organize into a small album that was easy to pack. Everything that was loose, most likely more photos from childhood, high school, & college, got thrown away. And looking through this album, I can only find the few above photos of my “awkward” years – and these aren’t even all that awkward.

I don’t remember most of the photos that are gone now. But I do remember one.

Photo from the makeover shoot I had at 28 that helped me realize I was pretty.

This one was a professional school photo taken the year I went to private school where I was bullied for having buck teeth, “chicken legs,” and “four eyes” before being pulled out & being homeschooled. In that photo, an 8 year old me with big, frizzy hair, glasses, and buck teeth stared back at viewers with sad eyes against a sky blue background. Even though that photo used to bring back painful memories every time I looked at it, now it pains me that I no longer have it because sometimes you need to be reminded of the pain to realize how good life is now. It also makes me sad that I no longer have it because that was who I was. Essentially, who I was as a child has now been wiped out, never to be seen or known again (unless my parents have more photos lying around their house…eek! Talk about major life regret…what was I thinking?!).

Maybe I got rid of the photo because it was a painful memory, or maybe it just got lost in the move. Either way, I’m sad as well as mad at myself for making the decision to clear out the clutter in haste. No matter how much I hated all those photos of me, they are still memories of the person I once was.

All of this made me think about something though. And that’s the reality that one day, Facebook may no longer exist and all the years of photos I have only saved to my Facebook will just disappear. Isn’t it scary to think that one day, you could just basically not exist? That one day, maybe your kids and their kids will have no memory of what grandma used to look like when she was a beautiful, young girl, or a grown woman? It’s a scary thought indeed.

This is why I hope you’ll hire a professional photographer. Why professional, why not just rely on selfies & cell phone pics in today’s techie age? Because you’re worth it. You deserve to have photos of you that you LOVE, and that’s what I do. I take the time to figure out & capture the best angle, the most flattering version of you, which is why so many of my clients walk away LOVING their photos when they never have before.

Also, choose to exist in print. Don’t just exist in digital. Computers die, USB drives get lost, and social media may not always exist. You & your future descendants deserve to know who you are!! Oh and I highly recommend an album that someone else (me) will take the time to design for you, because otherwise, someday you might find yourself downsizing like I did & be in too much of a hurry to sort through that box of loose photos. But if you really like prints, I offer those too. 😉