The Power of Photo Albums: The Importance of Including Albums on your Photography Blog
Blogs are impressive tools for communication. Your blog has the unique ability to communicate your brand message to your customers in your own words alongside your beautiful images. When deciding your content strategy, it’s important to broaden your scope to include topics beyond sessions. A very important topic to include on your blog is the importance of albums. Beautiful photo albums are more than an add-on to a package. Albums have the unique ability to become precious family heirlooms.
As photographers, you are the guardians of something precious. You capture memories. You stop time. More than any other occupation, photographers have the amazing ability to document happy moments and priceless milestones.
- That moment two people become one married couple.
- The moment two people become parents.
- Those precious milestones as children grow. (So, so, so, so quickly.)
But files can be deleted. Computers can crash.
The power of an album lasts. Especially in times when families need to remember the happy times.
Two of our Fotoskribe writers have recently found comfort in photo albums. We wanted to take a moment to remind you of how important your work is, and how much it is appreciated.
You Don’t Realize How Precious those Memories Are Until You Need Them
Here is Shelby’s story, in her own words:
Very recently, my cousin committed suicide. It came as a shock to my whole family. It wasn’t like when my uncle passed after days in the hospital. We always expected my grandmother, who has been in hospice care for years, to be the one to go next.
The whole funeral was planned in a matter of days, as a matter of courtesy to his immediate family. They wanted to be able to move on with their lives as quickly and painlessly as possible.
But that also meant that we had to scramble as fast as we could to gather pictures of him. My sister and I were assigned this duty. I spent two days calling my cousins, aunts and uncles begging for pictures to use for the slideshow that would be playing pictures of him in the lobby. We were able to scrape up several from Facebook, but there were hardly any from his younger years. There were very few physical albums to draw from.
We made it work and pulled together the slideshow in time, but I’ll never forget that feeling in the pit of my stomach as I spent hours trying desperately to find pictures of the dear friend that we had lost.
An Album is Something You Can Hold in Your Hands
After that experience, my sister and I sat down together and sorted through all the images we had. Now that we had them all gathered into one place, we didn’t want them to be lost to the winds again, especially not when we would never have the chance to get any more pictures of him.
So, we sorted the images we had. Pictures of him with his parents, with both sides of the family, with his niece and nephew… Pictures of him fishing, pictures with his Jeep, pictures in his football uniform.
We sorted out all of these images and sent them off to be put into a photo album, so that at least this time, we would have something physical and lasting as a remembrance of him. We were still reeling from loss, but we were determined. This was something we could do for the grieving family. We wanted them to have something solid, something physical, something that they could pull out of an attic or drawer instead of having to scour Facebook long after he’s been gone.
That was some time ago now. And just yesterday, as of writing this post, his sister posted on Facebook saying that she had received the photo album.
She had been particularly down about losing her brother that day, but when she got the package, it lifted her spirits and her heart. She said that it was a miracle for her in a time of need.
It was something for her to hold onto.
We had no warning that my cousin was going to leave us. There were no warning signs. There was nothing we could have done to prepare, to gather pictures and memories ahead of his passing. All we had were a few snatched pictures of him to draw from.
Yes, those images were important, but I cannot stress to you how much more it was important that his family had something they could hold in their hands, something that they could set out on the coffee table, look at every day, and remember the son and brother that they lost.
You never know how badly someone is going to need that.
The Power of Photo Albums
Here is Melissa’s story:
Last year, I had a really interesting year. Get this: within the span of 12 months, I got married, got pregnant, got a promotion, moved 650 miles away, and had a baby. BAM. Let’s just change everything all at once. However, what I didn’t add to that sentence was the kicker: I lost six beloved family members and friends.
Here’s the thing that you don’t really think about when you’re planning a wedding: when you’re so busily figuring out what color the ties should be to perfectly correlate with the boutonnieres, you don’t think about how your wedding might be the last time you see the people you love together.
Your wedding might be the last time you see these people you love happy.
It might be the last time you see them at all.
Every funeral, every memorial we planned… in every instance, the last professional pictures taken of these people I cherished were from my wedding. And somehow, my photographers had managed to capture so many natural, candid, organic moments with my loved ones. Flipping through the pages of my album, I can physically look back on the smiles and the laughter and the joy.
Giving Credit where Credit is Due
I actually reached out to my wedding photographers as we were planning the latest funeral and I told them how much I appreciated what they do. I don’t know if photographers hear it enough, so I made sure to tell them how their images and my album mean the world to me.
There is power in having a picture printed out. In this age of digitized images and fake news, my album is something real. Those pictures are something precious. I’m thankful my photographers made sure the information about how to get one and why it was an important part of the wedding package was readily available. Just like information about why a first look was important, I am glad they stressed the keepsake photo album was more than just something to keep on a shelf.
The Importance of Including Photo Albums on your Blog
Though you may include digital download packages for your customers, don’t risk allowing your clients to overlook the importance of a printed album. Digital files are meant to only be a temporary method of storage. It would be terrible to have those precious memories lost in a hard drive crash. Too many things can go wrong with digital media leaving those amazing images never printed or enjoyed. While your clients may have the best of intentions to print them out, sometimes, it doesn’t happen.
That is why it becomes so important to feature albums on your blog. It adds importance to the value of albums. Including them on your blog links the idea of a completed photography package including the album as well as the images. Whether you include the completed album with a post that talks about the couple and the event, or you have a few posts dedicated to the differences between the album types, make sure you include them on your photography blog.
Having albums on your blog helps you in two ways:
You have blog posts you can easily share with clients if they have questions about what options they have and what completed albums look like. Rather than answer the same questions again and again, they can all live in one handy post.
- It illustrates the importance of the album with their photography.
- Albums are a timeless reminder of joyful moments and cherished memories from happy times in your clients’ lives. Their completed album, filled with your stunning images will be a gorgeous memento for them to treasure, through good times and bad. Make sure that you include albums in some of your blog.
For more information on adding value to albums, please check out this post from ShootDotEdit: 4 Tips for Adding Value to Wedding Albums.
And, of course, if you aren’t sure how to incorporate albums into your current blogging strategy, make sure to contact us! We would be happy to help.
September is national suicide prevention month. It’s a time to remember those affected by suicide, to raise awareness, and to focus efforts on directing treatment to those who need it most. If you are in crisis, there are options available to help you cope. Visit the lifeline at https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org .
You can also call the Lifeline at any time to speak to someone and get support. For confidential support available 24/7 for everyone in the United States, call 1-800-273-8255.