+ more than a memory

Kelly

Jul 10

4 min read

Why I still believe in printing photos

10th July | Dysart, QLD

I can't remember exactly when photos stopped being something you held and started becoming something you scrolled...

When I was growing up in the '90s (yes, I can't believe I'm saying that 🤣), we didn't have thousands of photos sitting on a computer. We had albums!

I still remember my parents' albums from our trips up to the Territory, along with all the photos from when we were growing up. We'd pull them out every now and then and end up looking through them for ages, laughing about how much we'd all changed, telling stories and remembering moments we'd completely forgotten about. Somehow, I never get tired of hearing them

And then there was the photo box... You know the one, haha

It somehow ended up full of all the prints that never quite made it into an album. Bent corners, fingerprints, random photos from years apart, all mixed together. We'd tip the whole thing out and go through every single one of them, trying to remember where they were taken or laughing at the shocking haircuts Mum used to give us!! I still can't believe how bad they were!

The albums were those ones with the clear plastic sleeves that you had to hold your tongue the right way to make sure they'd slide in nicely and didn't catch on the sides. It always seemed so much harder than it looked, but there was something so satisfying about adding another photo and watching the pages slowly fill up

Fast forward to now (2026)...

How funny is it that we take more photos than ever before, yet most of them never leave our phones? We've never documented our lives more than we do now. Birthdays, family dinners, random Tuesday sunsets, the coffee we had this morning, we photograph everything. Yet somehow, most of those moments disappear into a camera roll that we rarely look back through

I don't think that's because we care any less about our memories. If anything, I think we care more. It's just become so easy to take another photo, save it for later and tell ourselves we'll come back to it one day. Before we know it, there are thousands of memories sitting quietly on our phones, waiting for a day that rarely comes

As much as I love photography, I'm no different. I have a bag of old printed photos sitting in my laundry that I keep meaning to sort through. They're getting dusty, a few are starting to fall apart, and every time I walk past them, I think, I really need to do something with those. But life gets busy, doesn't it? Somehow, another week, month or even year goes by, and they're still sitting there waiting

A little while ago, I ordered some sample prints for my Mother's Day market stall. I was so excited when they arrived, and they have been sitting in my office ever since. They're actually sitting just behind me as I type this

Honestly... I've probably picked them up more times than I've scrolled through my own camera roll

There's just something different about holding a photograph in your hands. You notice little things you probably would've scrolled straight past on your phone. The way someone was looking at you. The light. The tiny details that somehow feel even more special when they're printed

It really got me thinking...

We've definitely not lost photography; if anything, we're taking more photos than ever before. But I do think we've lost a little of the experience that came with them. Somewhere along the way, photographs became something we stored instead of something we shared

That's what I hope my clients take away from their galleries, too

Of course, I love seeing your photos pop up on Instagram or Facebook. I love knowing you're excited to share them with your family and friends. But I also hope they don't stop there

I hope they end up on your walls, in an album sitting on your coffee table, or tucked away in a keepsake box that gets pulled out years from now. I hope they're the photos your kids grow up seeing every day, and the ones they pull out years later when they want to remember where it all began

Because one day, those photographs won't just be for you anymore

They'll be for your children

Your grandchildren

The people who come after you

Just like my parents still pull out those old albums every now and then, I hope someone does the same with yours. I hope they ask questions, laugh at the hairstyles, hear the stories for the hundredth time, and smile at all the little moments that make up your life

Maybe that's why printed photographs will always matter to me

Not because I'm a photographer

But because photographs are so much more than just pictures

They're little pieces of our lives that deserve to be held, shared, passed around the lounge room, and, one day, passed on