Why it's Important to Print your Portraits

My firstborn turns 6 years old next week.

SIX.

Hanging over his bed are his newborn pictures, and I still can’t believe the baby that exists in those moments is now this gangly, silly kid.

Where does the time go?

I have a collection of “When we find a house and have all the wall space” art, which includes my placenta print, an amazing painting that was gifted to us of our late family dog, and (my favorites), beautiful wall art of a session I had of just my son and I with one of my favorite photographers.

These portraits, as I pull them out to gaze at them again, have only become sweeter as time has gone by.

As I pulled one out to place on my son’s shelf, he immediately stopped what he was doing to gaze at it. “Wow, look how little I was!”.

I immediately dove into telling him about that session, and how he was a feisty 2 and a half year old who needed fruit snacks to be bribed into taking pictures with his mama. How badly I wanted breastfeeding pictures, and he didn’t want to do them. How we laughed, we snuggled, and after our session we got the yummiest lunch. Back when it was just him and I, before his sister was born.

He looked at the one of him and I together, smiled, and said “You look beautiful, mama”. And my heart melted.

In this digital day and age, it’s so easy to manage pictures and videos on our phones, computers, tablets. It’s easy to put off or forget to let those same pictures live outside of our technology. It’s so important, though, for them to exist within our daily life, to be seen and enjoyed in our day to day routine.

Having physical prints on our walls helps our children’s confidence and self esteem.

Well, for one, it boosts our children’s self esteem and confidence! In this wonderful blog post by Design Aglow, they explore the reason’s having family portraits on the walls contributed to our children’s growth in a positive way.

“Displaying photos prominently in the home sends the message that our family and those in it are important to one another, and we honor the memories we have experienced,“ says Cathy Lander-Goldberg.

Typically these memories are those of love, happiness, and joy, and children will recollect those moments as they pass by their family portrait each day.

We, as parents, sometimes need that loving reminder, too.

There is a picture sitting on my son’s dresser, it’s black and white and it’s of me holding and hugging him. He’s only 15 months old, he was barely even walking. I’m completely and utterly lost in this moment in the portrait; I’m smiling tenderly, my hands are wrapped around his small body, my head is leaning lovingly into his.

When I look at this photo, I can still FEEL this moment.

The moment is on my phone….somewhere. Probably buried deep in a folder somewhere.

In my home it lives so my son can see it when he wakes up, and when he rests his head to sleep each night.

It’s there when I reach over to shut off the light, and I smile.

It’s there for him, and me, every day as a reminder of what once was, what still is; the love we have for each other.

This is our legacy.

I was photographing an in home session many years ago, and I remember seeing a piece of beautiful art up on their wall. I asked about it, intrigued. My client told me the story how this piece of artwork was special because it came from her late father. It was something she remembered him by, and when he had passed had it reframed and hung on the wall in her home.

I often think about this when printing my client’s portraits. When printing MY own family portraits. This art, portrait art, will it be loved so much by our children that they hang it within their homes?

This is the piece of us we can give them. A beautiful representation of our love.

That is our investment for them. Our legacy.

Thank you for reading! If you have a story about your own portrait wall art, please comment below! I’d love to hear it!

And if you’re dreaming of a new family portrait for the wall, I am here to create art that makes your heart sing. Contact me for more information on sessions!