At Tamieka Smith Photography, we love to help families make memories that will last for generations. These portraits will be able to preserve the youth of your children just after their born, your parents on their 50th anniversary or your graduation from high school. Family portraits can be kept for generations. Children grow quickly! Family members move to different states. There are various reasons why updating your family portraits should be done periodically. Documenting the growth and change in a family is particularly special and should be done at least every other year, if not sooner. This ensures you preserve your most precious memories with the people who mean most to you.
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Although we would like to have family portraits done, we come up with the normal excuses why we should wait: I need to lose weight; Money is tight; we might add to our family next year. The list goes on and on. This article is designed to talk about the reasons why you should update those portraits right now.
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It’s been a few years (or decades) since your last family portrait
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We’re all guilty of it. Life gets busy, and before you know it, that family portrait hanging on the wall is more than 10 years old.  Even if it’s been only a few years, I am willing to bet something has changed since your last family portrait session.
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You’ve added new family members
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A new baby, adoption, fostering, marriage, or even a new furbaby – it’s time to capture these new members of your family and celebrate them. It’s a well-documented theory that families who see their portraits displayed in their homes feel a closer bond, and children who see their portraits feel more loved and cherished.
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One of the first questions people ask when looking for a family photographer is if they offer all the digital images
from their portrait session. In fact, many families and couples plan to only purchase the digital images and aren’t interested in anything else and ready get frustrated when anything else is suggested.

By only purchasing the digital images, you’re putting yourself at a huge risk of losing your photos in just a few short years. Many well-intentioned families and couples who only get the digital images never print their images at all, or only print a few for gifts or for display. 

However, there’s a huge risk of losing the images and memories from them over time when you only have the
digital files.

With only the digital files, you are responsible for transferring the images from one type of digital media to another as technology advances every few years. Every time a file is transferred, there’s a risk of file corruption. Not only that, but if life gets crazy and you fail to transfer it to the new media, you may end up with a beautiful disc/flash drive/etc of photos that you can’t see anymore because there’s no machine around to use the disc/flash drive/etc with.
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​This is why we believe that a professional portrait album is of the utmost importance.  Even if you never do anything except store it in a closet, you’ll still have images to look at and enjoy years from now with no additional work whatsoever (like having electricity or the necessary medium to view the digital files).

In fact, we believe in this so strongly that we now include an album or book in every single package we offer.  We only offer professional, high quality signature albums/books made with archival inks and papers that are created to last for generations with proper care. We want the memories of your family to be seen and enjoyed by your family for years to come.

Don’t risk losing your memories.  Make purchasing and designing a beautiful signature album priority number one. We promise you there will not be any regrets.  

You can read all about our beautiful signature albums/books and learn what goes into ordering an album by viewing our album guide.  To learn about our signature albums and signature book click here.