So I’ve mentioned before why I got interested in photography. I’m the youngest of 5 children, and Mum and Dad didn’t bother with photos of me. One reel of black and white film sat in a drawer and never developed was what my baby years were reduced to. I have no doubt that my parents love me, that I was a cherished addition to the family. But I guess they just didn’t feel the need. As a result I have gone the other way. My children are immortalised in print many many many times over! Each of them have their own albums, and they love to look through them and try to remember the day they were taken, the moment they were captured.
Sometimes they aren’t even aware that I am photographing them.
The other day my littlest man fell asleep on the sofa. He looked so adorable, and I was so full of love and wonder that I just had to grab my camera! He is growing up so quickly, and he rarely stays still (as with most 2 year olds, he is a miniature hurricane on legs!), so capturing these quiet moments, those little details of his beautiful little toddler face, is so important to me. I will never let my children look back and wonder why there are no photos of them, wonder as I did growing up if they are somehow less important than their siblings, less worthy of remembering as time goes by.
So why should you pay someone to capture memories for you?
Maybe you have a decent camera, or just a camera phone. You can catch those moments yourself right? Absolutely! Snap away, immortalise every detail! Make memories, and shoot them. Print them, make albums. These moments are important! Too important to just be stored on your phone, or your computer. What would happen if your computer crashed, your phone broke? All those memories, lost forever. Shoot them, print them, pass them down to the next generation!
So why do you need professional photos?
Sometimes its tiresome being behind the camera. Look through my family albums and the only photos you will find of me are selfies. I’ve been so busy capturing my children that I have rarely appeared in front of the camera. This is going to change, family photographs for the album and the wall are in the pipeline. Yes, I am going to pay someone else to photograph my family and I! A bit of a busman’s holiday, but necessary. Because I want my children to look back and find photos of me with them, not forget what I looked like because I was always behind the camera.
A pro photographer can catch moments that you might miss, will let you be involved in those moments instead of just being an observer and will give you a finished product, not just a snapshot. Editing plays a big part in a photographer’s style, its much more than just pressing a button and burning to a disc!
Professional photography is a luxury, there is no doubt about it. But it is one that is very much worth investing in. Some people spend their life doing housework, and hating every second. Some hire a cleaner to do it for them. Its not that they can’t do it themselves, they would just rather free up time to do other things, and pay a professional. Its very much the same with photography. Its not for every day, but it is an investment. In your family, in your memories, in the next generation. It is worth every penny.
Kelly.x