Buy a wedding album. There…post done. OK, just kidding.
But seriously. Let us have a heart to heart about this topic. In the good ‘ol days of shooting film, wedded couples didn’t have a choice. Photographers shot weddings and then produced a proof book for you with all your printed images in a neatly laid out album. I guarantee your parents have one on their shelf right now. Even some of my friends that got married in the turn of the century have one, before things went all crazy digital. How I long for those days….but I’ll get to that in a bit. We have been riding this digital wave for many years now. When high quality digital SLR cameras started to take over the industry in the early 2000s, photographers ditched the proof books and started offering their clients a CD of images in its place.
Photographers now had cameras that could shoot thousands of images at each wedding instead of a few hundred, they stopped developing film (some did), and low and behold the “shoot and burn” revolution was born. This shoot and burn phase of photography, as its called, started to take off around 2004 (ish) and before we knew it clients were expecting that their wedding package included the high resolution files from their wedding. It is seriously the first question I get from the majority of clients. “Do I get my images?” They expect it now. And we, not them, made this happen.
I write all of that only to provide a historical context to where we are today. So where are we in 2015? Go to any Apple store and try to buy a computer with a CD drive in it. You won’t find one. And if you do have a bunch of photos on discs, you might want to get them off soon because before we know it there won’t be a single computer on the market that will be able to read them. Additionally, the sale of digital cameras hit an all time high in 2005 and has been on a slight decline ever since. Now, I do not think this is because people all of sudden started printing their photos again. It was mostly due to the introduction smartphone with cameras and then the iPhone release in June of 2007 changed the game. I remember that day well. My husband and I were in line that day. So digital hasn’t gone away; it just started to take a new form, a smaller form that could now fit in our back pocket.
But I believe that all of that is changing. I believe that people, in their soul, are looking for something more.
I truly believe that there is a cycle to everything we do in life and that this digital craze may be winding down…just ever so slightly. With the rise of all things artisan, boutique, bespoke, hipster, home grown, whatever you want to call it, I see a sector of society growing very tired of all the digital in their lives and are looking to get back to what it felt like to live a more analogue life. Keeping a journal, writing your daily plan in an actual paper planner (I’ve had one for years and I love them), growing your own food, you name it. We want to feel more connected to our own lives. And I’ll be honest with you, there is absolutely nothing that connects me emotionally to a piece of plastic CD or a tiny flash drive that my sly three year old might get a hold of and potentially throw in the trash (not kidding). And above all, let us remember this: it is not if that disc, thumb drive or hard drives crashes…it’s when. But when I open up a book, a heavy, beautifully bound, warm smelling book (yes, I smell my books), there is a very real connection to what you are seeing on those pages. Don’t you want to have that personal connection with your own wedding? Don’t you want to be able to reach up onto the shelf or on your coffee table, curl up on the couch with your favorite hot beverage and relive that spectacular day any time you want? I know I sure do. I deeply want this for my clients. The photos that I take of my couples are raw, emotional, real authentic imagery from their wedding.
These images are of a family member walking you down the isle, or maybe you walked yourself because your parent or parents aren’t with you anymore and that was something so very important to you.
They are images of your groom crying at the alter and you wiping away his tears of joy.
They are images of pure joy and laughter as you and your new spouse sing to each other and dance to your favorite song in front of all your friends and family.
These are images that are not meant to be enjoyed on a computer screen.
I’ll wrap this up just by saying this: prints matter. All of my 2015 wedding clients will be receiving something printed in any of the packages that they choose because I feel that strongly about this. I encourage everyone to include an album in their package for all of the above reasons and more. And so far…all of them are.
If you would like to learn more about the Anne Schmidt Photography experience and want to hear more about my offerings for this year, do not hesitate to contact me. I can’t wait to hear from you so that we can talk about how we can preserve your family history. For a sampling of the albums I make, click here.
