The Power & Importance of Photos
Today on the blog I have decided to take a little bit of a different direction than my usual content. Whereas I typically share my family, engagement and wedding work or educational posts, today I will be chatting about a topic that has been very prominent in my life lately. If you follow me online, are a past client or friend, you have seen that my sweet Nani passed at the end of September. Part of me has been hesitant to write about this, but whats more is the other part is screaming to write a blog about the topic of the importance of photos within your family.
Obviously as a photographer, I will always preach the importance of photos. But this is coming from a different place in my heart. With my Nani’s passing, my family and I have come together to get through this tough time together. On October 16th, we had her memorial and with all of the planning and mourning we have been looking through tons of photos.
There are photos of my Nani from her young adult life, from when my mom and aunt were babies, up until now. So many photos of myself, sister and 2 cousins. Boxes upon boxes and albums upon albums of photos.
I always knew that I came from a family who treasured taking photos, anytime we have a family gathering a group photo is inevitably taken. But what I didn’t realize is how far back this passion for capturing moments went. My grandpa was into photography back in the day and when my mom was a kid they took lots and lots of photos.
Whats even more impressive is that we still have ALL of these photos today!
When the memorial planning began, I went with my mom and aunt to the funeral home for some extra support. The amount of time and effort that goes into planning a memorial was mind blowing but this post isn’t about that. What stuck out to me was the option for them to create a slideshow to be played before and following the service.
Now this is going to sound silly, but I LOVE making slideshows and I am actually really good at it. To my disappointment, funeral home technology is pretty basic and a slideshow consisted of simply putting images on a USB. Regardless, I was determined to make something Nani would have loved watching if she had been able to see it.
I consulted with my bestie as she is a funeral director and her advice was to chose around 75 photos to keep the slideshow at about 20ish minutes. So how many photos did I end up with? 196 and that was with cutting some out.
So why am I telling you all this?
I hear the line “I hate having my photo taken” literally every session and wedding I attend and while I can understand the concern…we really need to stop avoiding photos.
Now, I am not going to preach at you or beg you to be in photos. At the end of the day you need to do what you want and feel comfortable with but I do think it is worth thinking about your family and children. I can only imagine how many families aren’t lucky like I am and have NO photos of their parents, grandparents or great grandparents. I am so incredibly grateful for the amount of photos we had to choose from and how many I now have that I can always look at when I miss my Nani.
Next time you have photos taken whether that be professional or simply an iPhone shot out with your family. Think about the people who love you in your life and who will treasure these memories in photo form. Think about your parents and how much you will appreciate having those memories of them because one day that is going to be all you will have.
Grieving my Nani’s passing has been one of the toughest things I have ever had to deal with. She wasn’t just my grandmother, she was my confidant, my best friend, my coffee date, my advice giver and the best hugger. I lost a person in my life who shaped me to be who I am today and although I will never get to talk to her or hug her again, I will forever be so grateful for all of the photos I will always have to look back at.
This has become something I have been feeling so passionate about and although having “too many” photos seems like a silly problem, I would take that over having none any day!
Sincerely,
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“Michelle is a featured and award winning London Ontario Wedding Photographer, who loves to capture unique relationships and create lasting memories! Behind the camera, I am a wife to my high school sweetheart, a mom to a little corgi named Samson, a collector of cute pins and supporter of small business!”
