Importance of Printing Photographs

I was talking with a friend recently and the subject of printing photos came up.  She and her husband have five living children, and one, her first born, who succumbed to leukemia when he was 5 years old.  

She shared with me that she really understands why it is important to print photographs.  This realization came about because fairly recently, there was an issue with her computer hard drive, where she had all of her photos stored.  Sadly, all the photos on the computer that she had collected of her children over the years were lost. Gone.  This, despite the fact that she believed she had them backed up.   Not only will she miss having those photographs to enjoy for herself, but she was sad because her children who are teenagers and young adults will not have those photographs to reminisce with and remember the fun trips they made as a family over the years – not to mention those milestone moments.   Of course, they still have their memories and they can talk about those times together, but there is just something really special about being able to pass around printed photographs and remember the moment, what they were doing on that occasion.  And often, as I have observed with my own children, it is the photograph itself that at one point or another triggers a memory and more importantly, a special feeling, from that time long past.