The Importance of Capturing Family Memories

While a professional photo shoot is great fun, and you will get some fantastic photos, professional photographers aren’t paid to capture the real life of a family. The moment you and your new born baby lock eyes for the first time, and your partner is a witness to the love that springs forth, or when your older child holds their new baby sister for the first time; these are the big moments that only you and your partner can capture.

You won’t forget those moments, but if you have a photo and you have captured the exquisiteness of the moment on camera that is worth more than any money you would ever pay a professional. There are myriad other reasons to make sure you always have your camera on hand, here are a few of those that will have you snapping away to preserve those lovely moments in time.

Our Memories Can Play Tricks On Us

Over time we form ideas of how things were, but all it takes is a photo from a particular era to challenge this. You may get to your forties with a belief that you are not sporty or fit and have always battled with your weight. Then you may see a photo of yourself on the athletics track as a teenager, claiming first prize for the hurdles. Photographs remind us that we are fluid; our identities are fluid and being able to see different versions of ourselves over time, through photos, is an essential part of that evolution.

Old photos can help remind you of how far you’ve come or of happy times past that you have a chance at rekindling. It’s important to preserve these memories for your own children, so they are able to experience different versions of themselves with the passing of time. Documenting the evolution of their changing identities is an essential component to their future identity.

The Days Are Long But The Years Are Short

The thing with clichés is they are true, and this is a good one to remember when thinking about capturing your day-to-day lives. Getting the camera out doesn’t just need to be limited to holidays, or the school concert, or graduation day. These occasions are important, but those days that seem so long are gone in an instant. Taking photos and capturing your family as they go about their daily business is equally as important as the first school concert, if not more so.

Looking At Old Photos Provides Connection

Even photos as little as three years old will enthrall your children. They will be happy to sit and flick through albums of when they were born, or their first year. Looking at them together, cuddled up on the sofa, with you providing the narrative conjures the closeness of story time, or that singing a nursery rhyme will bring. But that connection will always be deeper and more enduring, with more meaning because the story you are telling is their story. There is nothing like hearing your own story being told by someone else to shape and mold a sense of self.

Your Photos Will Become Treasures To Your Children

Taking regular photos of your family life is one of the most precious gifts you can give to your children. While it’s difficult to think fifty years in the future, it is worth considering it for moment. When your children are grown up, and perhaps have their own children, the photos that you took will be a cherished possession.

It’s easy for us to remember the childhood we gave our children, but little minds that are growing and developing may only have patchy memories, particularly of the early years. To provide them with a document that tells the story of their early years will be deeply valued, particularly after you’ve gone.

Photos Can Piece Together a Family History

If you have old photos of your parents and grandparents, combined with the pictures you are taking, these can provide a sense of identity, of comfort and belonging not seen with other mediums of documentation. Family resemblances emerge in photos that may not be immediately obvious in person, and evidence of previous generations physical traits that appear in your children can be a powerful indicator of where they belong, where they came from and how they are deeply connected to their family history.

Share the Big Moments With Those Close To You

While it might seem obvious, if someone can’t be there for the school concert, birthday party, first ever Christmas or any of those big occasions it hurts us to miss, the next best thing is the photos. One of the reasons why social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook have become so deeply ingrained in our daily lives is because of the connection it provides between people who can’t be together.

We thrive on looking at other peoples’ photos and we love to share our own. Even if you’re not on social media, printing off some snaps of a big event and putting them in the post will immediately make the absent person feel more connected to the event.

Photography Can Help With Mindfulness and Gratitude

If you have the camera at the ready, you will always be thinking about the prospect of capturing the moment. More and more moments will become photo-worthy, simply by thinking about them. Taking photos will help you see that watching the kids playing Monopoly together, or building a sandcastle on the beach are the beautiful (photo-worthy) moments.

The little moments that you want to take photos of actually become the big moments. Whether it is through the lens of a camera, or just the contemplation of a photograph, you will be clearer about those wonderful little moments that punctuate your life and make it what it is. Your gratitude will grow and you’ll be able to truly be in that special moment.

Life is full of love, joy, sadness, fear, excitement, connection, adventure, history, variety, and movement. To have a camera in hand to document and bear witness to all of these amazing things, will not only bring your photos in to sharper focus, it will bring your life in to sharper focus. Capturing those family memories can only make your life better.

 

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