For as far back as I can remember, I have loved flipping through old photos. Looking through photos of my parents when they were little was fascinating to me. Looking through old baby books from my childhood gives a couple good laughs. I distinctly remember loving to look through old drill team scrapbooks when I was in high school. Every photo is almost like a little mystery and behind the scenes look at what life was like at that time. Well, my mother-in-law, Diana, brought home several old photos from her family's farm house recently and while looking through them, I realized a couple things.
What I learned From Nana's Photos...
1. Meaningful Photos Don't Need to Be Perfect
If you look at my photos for all of 2 seconds, you will realized I am a documentary and lifestyle photographer. I absolutely love taking photos of the small moments, the every day occurrences, and loving interactions between people. Thankfully this style works well for photographing my three crazy boys. I take hundreds of photos of them a month and there is no way they will all be perfect. However, I love the imperfect photos just the same. When I looked at Diana's old photos, not one time did I think 'oh, this is a cute picture, but the lighting looks weird' or 'hmm...the composition is off on this adorable photo'. I simply enjoyed looking back to see what she looked like when she was younger, what the farm looked liked, what Brad's grandma whom I never met looked like, how silly my husband looked when he was young. Documenting your life in photos doesn't need to be perfect. It just needs to capture the moments.
2. Write Down Descriptions
Like I said earlier, I take hundreds of photos of my family each month. Many times I make a book of photos online for a 6-12 month period. Due to laziness, I don't add any text to describe photos. I really need to start doing that because it was extremely helpful to look at these old photos with simple descriptions. Dates, names, locations...I may remember where or when the photos were taken, but my grandchildren won't know if I am not there to explain it. I love the fact Diana's photos have her mother's handwriting on them. That makes it so much more personal and I would love my children and grandchildren to be able to see my handwriting when I am not around anymore. Perhaps we should start jotting down info on the back of the printed photos. I even thought about printing labels for the back of photos so I didn't have to write the same thing over and over again. Either way, adding info seems to be a must for passing down photos.
3. Print Your Photos
Haven't we heard this a million times? Print your photos! While I have some photos in a photo book, (and some photos printed individually and many more on a hard drive, but I digress) I don't think that is the same as being able to hold a single photograph in your hand. If you see in the photos above, these books don't have the photos displayed in any sort of fancy fashion. Yet, I didn't care when I looked through the pages. I wouldn't care if all the photos were in a shoe box. Simply, the photos need to be printed so they can be passed down to the next generations. I heard on the radio that our generation will be the most photographed yet least documented because people don't print photos as often. I need to bite the bullet and pay to get my thousands of photos printed!
4. Get In the Photo
OK, so maybe I didn't realize this tip from Nana's photos, but I feel I must reiterate how important it is to be in the photo. Be it by yourself, with loved ones, with children, with friends...YOU are important and need to be photographed. Your children want to know about you and your life. That means you need to get over the 'need to lose 15 pounds' issues and get in the dang photo.
Here is a photo of myself and my three boys. Guess what? I really don't like this photo of me for various reasons. However, I love that we all look happy, it is real life, and my kids will know I was hugely present in their lives and they are loved more than they will ever understand. That is what is important and why I am in photos with my kids regardless of how I feel about my appearance.
Jen Faith Brown is a family photographer specializing in storytelling family photography session, either in home or on location. Jen is married with three young sons who keep her quite busy and give her abundant practice in photographing always-moving children! Jen is now booking 2015 sessions in Flower Mound, Southlake, Highland Village, Lewisville, Coppell, Frisco, and surround DFW areas. Please visit www.jenfaithbrownphotography.com for pricing and to view sample galleries.
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