5 Reasons to Update Your Family Photos Every Year

We live in a fast-paced world that’s constantly changing and shifting.

Living our lives by the chime of alarm tones and the reminder of dates on a calendar.

Dance recitals, hockey practices, school fundraisers, work deadlines, home renos, it all adds up, and before we know it, enough time has passed without our noticing and we’re not totally sure how it happened.

We all know what a thief time is, it just keeps on ticking, slipping away and robbing us of our babies while they’re still babies. We can’t go back, we can’t do it again, there aren’t any do-overs.

But thankfully, we have photographs.

Pictures have the most incredible ability to reach back into our past, pinpoint specific moments, perfect memories, and immortalize the people we love.

Professional photography, especially when booked annually, is powerful and each shot is completely priceless.

“But Brogan, I’ve got this handy little pocket computer that takes all the pictures I could ever want for free, what’s so different about professional photos?”

Let me give you something to think about.

Do you love flipping through old albums? Leafing through the glossy sticky pages in your Grandmother’s basement, pointing out your sister’s crazy perm or that gaudy neon coloured snowsuit? Are you instantly brought back to those moments? To your mom tugging on your winter boots or your dad launching you like a rocket into the lake?

I bet you have more than a few good snaps like that on your cell phone right?

But how many have you printed?

How many of those quick snaps are framed and hanging on your walls?

And how many of them are you actually in?

Beyond the fact that cellphone snaps don’t have the same printed quality and aesthetic, chances are, you’re never going to print them anyways.

We all do it, whip out our phones to take a quick pic, then our interest peaked, we stick it back into our pocket, and that’s where that image will live forever.

When we make the commitment and investment to hire a skilled professional photographer, it takes our feelings toward those images to a much more heightened level, and hidden in our pockets is the last place we want to keep them.

So why hire a professional? What’s the big deal about updating family photos every year? Well my friend, Let’s count some of the ways shall we?

1. There’s a psychological explanation

Many studies have shown that hanging family pictures in your home improve children’s confidence and self-esteem!

I don’t know about you, but in my house, the fridge is a major place of honour. My girls both vy for a front and centre spot for their many hand-drawn and painted pieces of artwork. Seeing their creations pinned to their version of a trophy case makes them feel special and proud.

So it’s only natural that seeing themselves proudly framed and displayed in prominent places around your home gives them that same feeling. It shows your kiddos that they hold an important role in the family dynamic, instill a sense of belonging and that they are special and worth remembering.

Now that’s just good science!

2. They reinforce family connection

Seeing images of ourselves with our loved ones makes us feel deeply connected to each other and can even decrease our sense of loneliness.

When you look back on your last family session, everyone snuggled in tightly, arms and hearts wrapped around each other in the best and warmest group hug, you just might find yourself overwhelmed with warm fuzzy feelings and a sudden urge to sigh with contentment.

Flipping through family albums or browsing a gallery wall full of the people closest to us strengthens our positive feelings, trust, and emotional bonds with each other.

3. Kids grow fast!

We all know the saying, time flies when you’re having fun. Well, that also applies to having kids! Have you ever looked across the dinner table at one of your kids, and are suddenly hit with the fact that somehow, without your noticing, their whole face is changing?

Your kiddos change so much in mere months let alone a whole year, add in a growth spurt and now you’re trying to keep up with their latest shoe size and the fact that your toddler just became a preteen overnight!

Updating your family photos annually is the best way to quite literally, watch them grow!

4. Mom gets in the pictures too

One major downfall of being the family photographer is the fact that besides the odd selfie, you never get to actually be in the pictures!

I’m looking at you moms!

Like I said, a photograph has the ability to reach back into the past, and moms, your children want to see you too!

They don’t see the extra few pounds you insist you need to lose.

They don’t care that your hair wasn’t expertly blown out.

They don’t worry that you were looking down or weren’t wearing makeup or had a stain on your shirt. They just want to see you!

It never fails, tragedy strikes a family and the first thing we do is to reach for the family albums, scouring for images of our loved ones who are no longer with us, and all too often coming up with a tiny handful of memories of the person we ache to look back on.

Please please please mommas, give them more than a handful.

Give them your smiling face and your hand on the small of their back and your arms wrapped tightly around them.

This will be all they will have of you one day.

Give them this gift of you.

5. Printed photos are priceless

When we lose a loved one, when we’re pressed with the scenario, “if you could save one thing from a fire,” the answer is almost always collectively, the family photos.

One day, pictures will be the only physical documentation of us we leave behind.

We never, ever get tired of looking at them, of reminiscing over them, of pointing out our ancestors to the younger generations of our family.

These little slips of printed paper, loose in photo boxes, filling the pages of albums, and hanging on our walls, are our legacy, our memories, our family heirlooms.

Having a physical representation of our past to pass down from generation to generation is absolutely priceless. Give yourself this gift.