A personal and professional perspective from An Open Book Photography.
I grew up with photographs around me – on walls, in frames, in albums, in pocket wallets that my Mum used to carry around with her to show friends and family. There was never an occasion when my Mum didn’t have a compact camera in her bag, ready to capture the moments at a special event or birthday – this was before the days of us all having cameras as part of our phones. These photographs got printed, carried in wallets to enjoy and show other people and so the cycle continued.
It was this tangibility of photographs that was so prevalent – handing them around to people when there was something new to look at – a wedding, a new school photograph, a celebration, a graduation, a birthday, a Christmas gathering. Buying a new frame for a special photograph, placing them in albums for safe keeping – labelling them up with dates and names attached where possible.
This was so integral to my life – and obviously still is.
Kathryn widdowson
My Grandad was a keen amateur photographer – he entered prints into competitions, captured my Granny, his children and dogs in black and white and I was surrounded by these wonderful memories growing up. He didn’t have a lot of money to spend on equipment and cameras back then were not as readily accessible and so having these printed pictures in my life now is so special – they enable my Grandad’s photography legacy to live on, bringing me joy and bringing my heritage to life in the stories he captured.
My Granny passed away when I was eight, my Grandad when I was seventeen and my Mum passed away just six years ago. You can probably therefore imagine why my most precious possessions are the photographs my Grandad took and the memories I have of my Mum in printed photographs. I literally have a picture of my own family history; I have a sense of place and belonging from these photographs. They are my connection to the past, they give me comfort in the present – indeed, they have brought me smiles through my grieving – and they provide a social history for the future.
So what is my point? I have these photographs because they are printed – they are not floating around in a digital space, stuck on a hard drive that I can no longer access, or on a USB or CD (that’s even older than a USB)! Because digital transfer methods don’t last. A USB isn’t likely to last more than a decade. And who knows where your phone’s image storage will be in 20, 30 or 50 years time? Hard drives or cloud drives are sensible backup systems, but there is nothing more secure than the printed photograph.
And what really resonated with me and prompted me further to be a guest blogger for Folio on this subject was a client whose wedding I captured 10 years ago, letting me know (with some horror) that they couldn’t locate their USB containing their photographs. This made my heart sink that there was nothing tangible for this couple and their family to look back on from their most special of days.
Kathryn widdowson
I can’t stress enough that any digital method that a professional photographer uses to send a client their photographs – a USB, online gallery or other online platform – is merely a transfer method – it’s not somewhere you should be leaving your treasured photographs.
THE best way to preserve memories for now and for the future is in print.
Kathryn widdowson
Folio are my preferred supplier for both Fine Art Albums and Fine Art Prints and I speak from the most personal experience in the value that these will have for the future. An investment? Yes. But one that will be valued and treasured for generations to come – I’d say that was priceless.
Written and Images by Katheryn Widdowson – An Open Book Photography.
Kathryn is a family photographer based in Yorkshire. Her style of photography centres around creating emotive environmental portraits that tell a story and bring about a sense of place and communicate who you are, naturally, in family life or in business life.
