5 Reasons Why Photography Is Priceless
Reason # 1 - Photographs Tell A Story
Our entire lives can be documented with a simple click of a shutter. We can look back on forgotten memories. We can relive the moment in time when bright neon pink shorts were in style. (Were they ever really in style though?)
When you ask someone “What possessions would you grab on your way out of a burning building?” Quite frequently the answer is a hard drive with their family images or photo album of significance to them and your phone with the many crazy images you take daily in your life.
It’s interesting to look at how when we panic, there isn’t any value placed on the expensive jewelry or diamonds you love so much, but the images that are irreplaceable. It reminds us of the importance photography plays in our daily lives. Our desire to capture the most precious moments and have them for eternity. We always have our smartphones out capturing all the laughter almost daily. Create art for our walls and share them with friends and family either through prints or social media. We always try to capture significant events like halloween, birthdays and that time your tooth fell out. We splurge and get professional images and document weddings, births and at the very least, annual family portraits.
Photographs are unique to each one of us. They tell our story. They are filled with the faces in our lives, the places we have been and the steps we have taken along the way. We love to have them to relive past memories, remember our journeys and share our experiences with our loved ones. Our images can be compiled to tell our individual and unique story from start to finish. Nothing can replace them.
Reason # 2 - We Get To Leave A Part Of Ourselves Behind
We’ve all been there. Sitting with our parents sifting through old photographs or my personal favourite, when you have kids and your parents pull out the old photo albums or prints to show you how much your new baby looks exactly like you when you were born. Photographs capture that moment in time in its extreme details. Sure your mother will remember all your wrinkles, tiny toes and details from when you were a baby but she will get so much joy being able to show you vs telling you about it. It’s these little snippets that make a difference. These snippets that freeze a moment in time, a place as it once was or a person the way we once knew them. They are all small pieces alone, but together add up to be the story that paints the larger picture of our lives.
Reason # 3 - It’s a Way To Share Our Experiences With Friends And Family.
Images are much more than a simple record. Photography speaks to the best and most generous part of our human nature – the desire to share what we find beautiful and interesting with others. You only have to look at Flickr, Instagram and a multitude of photo sharing sites to see this impulse at work. Millions of people sharing their personal, passionate and sometimes quirky take on the world around them. Our images can involve a world of strangers in our life. How powerful is that?
4. Photography Gives Us All The Feels
Photographs can grab our attention in so many ways. It plays with all of our senses and speaks directly to our emotions. In this image, the brides father crying lets us know so many things. How proud of his daughter he is, how sad he is about her growing up and how honoured he is because he was such an integral role in her life leading to this moment.
We didn’t have to be at this event to relate to how this man feels. It touches some of us more than others. If you can relate personally to this image, you may feel it deeper, but either way, you understand him.
Reason # 5 - A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words.
Images can express joy and sorrow, wonder and sympathy. Every human emotion can find a place in photography. A single picture can tell a huge story. Everyone who looks at a picture has the ability to see the story through their own eyes, merging previous life experiences and flooding their mood with both past and present emotions.