I think of essentials are faster computers, better TV, you can think of a hundred things. Yet not one of these things would we consider saving if there was a fire because in the big picture they are not that important to us!
So why do we go for years without getting professional portraits taken of our families? We are sometimes guilty of thinking that the school photo captures our children and we often rely on those annual shots of them. We dress them in their (boring) school uniform and make extra attempts to tame wild stray hairs before they run into the school yard and swiftly undo those efforts. It gets their likeness, sometimes it’s just a better version of a passport photo, but does it really capture their spirits in the 3 minutes they sit next to a plastic plant? Does tell you that your daughter loved horses or your son loved the beach. Would you frame it and display it on your wall? Two 8×10 school photos can cost almost the same as a custom photo session, and this is fine as long as you really love them!
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We often rely on the school photo. We dress them in their (boring) school uniform and make extra attempts to tame wild stray hairs before they run into the school yard and swiftly undo those efforts. It gets their likeness, sometimes it’s just a better version of a passport photo, but does it really capture their spirits in the 3 minutes they sit next to a plastic plant? Does it tell you that your daughter loved horses or your son loved the beach. Would you frame it and display it on your wall?
Anyone can go into an art store and spend £150 on a generic framed print (before my kiddos I had quite a few of them) or a 40×30 canvas of some pretty flowers to decorate their home from John Lewis.
There is nothing wrong with that, especially if you are selling your house or decorating a hotel. Now, I am much more likely to feel at home and stand in awe of a beautiful portrait of a family or a child than anything else, I see it as an essential part of a welcoming, loving home.
• We can blame our Britishness, we don’t want to appear to be too vain by hanging up huge portraits of ourselves.
Have you ever visited a Victorian house and thought “Wow these people were so vain, look at all these paintings of them on the walls”?
• We can curse the bad weather, still what’s cuter than photographs of kiddos in wellies, with rain-macs and brollies? It’s quintessentially British too.
• We could blame our limited funds, yet we often spend a lot of money on lots of things that don’t last, and we still order takeaways and refuse to have photographs taken until we loose weight.
I’m not saying don’t go to the hair dressers for a blow dry, or never have a manipedi, no way! I just want to point out that we sometimes forget to factor in what we value most of all. We can fully blame our memory because we lead such busy lives. All the more reason to get those photo sessions booked right away!
Think about this, it might help you remember – Imagine every square foot of your wall space in your home costs a percentage of your mortgage, divided up it could be £3000 per square. What you hang in that space should be special and unique to you, something you love.
I believe that your professionally taken photographs are essential because every time you walk past a gorgeous portrait of you and your family in your home, it will make you smile and remind you of how amazing you really are. It will do this over and over again and only increase in value with time.
Celebrate the family you created. After all they are YOUR best works of art.
