A Throwback to 1929...Do You Offer a Legacy Program?

by Skip Cohen

It's my favorite topic—throwbacks. Why? First, they're simply fun to search for. Second, they remind us of photography's importance in all our lives! 

Going through an album of old photographs, I found this one from my Dad's first-grade class almost a hundred years ago. The year is 1929, and my Dad is in the top right corner. Dad grew up in Cleveland, and this would have been shot right at the beginning of the Great Depression.

But today's Throwback Thursday post has a different purpose. Do you offer a Legacy Program to your clients? Even more importantly, how about your own family? 

My definition of a Legacy Program includes anything related to capturing the history of your family or a client. With my own folks, I failed to formally capture any of the stories my folks had to share about their lives growing up, how they met, WWII, etc. I have albums of old photographs with little or no idea who anybody is or was, because they're all deceased.

From a business perspective, very few of you offer any kind of Legacy Program in your portrait offerings. Support could include efforts to capture the senior members of a family in a formal portrait or video coverage of the older generation telling their stories. While anybody today can capture video with their phones, all of you have the ability to create a more professional presentation combining video with still images and put together in a beautiful presentation.

For today, all I want to do is remind you not to let time slip by. Take the time to set up a camera or phone and sit down with your parents and grandparents. Document their conversations about growing up, their friends, and their experiences. And if you're stuck for what to talk about, just pull out some old photographs and kick back and let them do the talking!

Take the time now to set up a date in the very near future. The title of yesterday's post was, "Someday is not a Day of the Week." Need I say more?

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