I am so very excited about this blog post. It is my chance to tell you about my passion for the printed image. I have been a professional photographer for about 12 years. When I first started out in my business it was 2005 and I was living in Los Angeles with my husband and then 3 year old son. Back then, digital photography was fairly new and photographers rarely, released their digital images (at least that was the case in the area I lived). Photographers even frowned upon other photographers who sold their digital images. Well, as technology advanced the customers demand for the digital image increased to the point that the majority of photographers could no longer ignore it. Here we are about 10 years later and most photographers offer the digital images in some fashion. 

     Since military life afforded me the opportunity to restart my business in many locations, I felt free to try many changes with my business. I am grateful for this because I really got to see what worked and felt right for me as an artist. I've tried it all- not selling the digitals at all (only prints), shooting and selling only digitals to wind up here where I am today back at selling prints and including digitals as well. This combination just feels right to me and now I proudly call myself a print artist. 

     When I was shooting and only offering clients 30-40 images on a disc I felt something was missing and I couldn't figure out what it was but I knew I wanted to offer more. I also knew that every time I had a customer order a print (which was rare when I was selling the digitals) I was blown away every time I got the pictures back from the lab. It did wonders for me as an artist to see my work printed- it increased my confidence and essentially changed photography business. I thought if I feel this way about a printed image- imagine how parents would feel about holding printed images of the children or any other client would feel. 

     Then, as I looked at my children I realized that I was rarely printing images of them anymore at all! Then it dawned on me the irony of the whole situation. Our children are the most photographed generation of children ever but, they most likely will see less of their childhood images than we did and are still able to see. Why is this? Well, first of all, like me, most people are not printing images nearly as much as they once did. Our mobile phones and computers have thousands of pictures of our kids but, will they be able to access those pictures in 20 or 30 years? Will their grandchildren be able to look back on photographs of them like our kids can do now? Sure companies will be around to help you "rescue" these images off of old mobile devices and hard drives- but, at what cost? And, who is going to have the time to do this anyway!?

     So, it is settled. I am a print artist. Every family or individual client I work with receives printed images with their purchase - along with complimentary digital matching images. I am so grateful to be able to provide this service to clients and their families. To be a part of creating tangible heirloom memories that families can pass down from generation to generation is truly an honor.