The Value of Family Photos

I was talking to a lady the other day who had a very sad story to tell. Orphaned as a child, she had no photographs at all of her childhood. In later years her ex husband destroyed all of her photographs from her teenage and young adult years. As the son of a photographer, this really brought home to me the value of family photographs, whether taken professionally or just casual family snapshots. I'm lucky in that we have a wealth of family photographs to look back on, but that isn't always the case.

What concerns me in this digital age is that there are many more photographs taken than ever before, but most of them never see the light of day. They're stored on computer hard drives or even left on the camera or phone, but we all know how fast technology goes out of date, and how quickly computers can fail without warning. Pictures can so easily be lost forever.

My advice is to back your pictures up!! Better still, get them printed - a hard copy is so much more stable!! And take heed of the story that started this blog - get multiple copies and distribute them round the family. One last word of advice - if you're the family photographer, make sure that you get to be on some of the pictures too. They don't have to be masterpieces, but why not supplement your own family snapshots by booking a professional family photoshoot once in a while. Family photographs are one of the few things that increase in value as time goes by.

I just thought I'd take this opportunity to share a couple of family shots from my own childhood....


A rare photograph of me with my dad - he was usually the one behind the camera. This one was taken by mum (not a keen photographer!).

Me and mum....from my 'baby's first year' album put together by my dad. Priceless.

And finally, an action shot of me taken during the last really hard winter I remember.....1962/3.