Old Photographs, Family and the Stories

​It's Throwback Thursday, and if you're going to do it right each week, you'll notice how it starts to become an art form. A throwback image is anything you want it to be, as long as you have to jump into the "way-back machine" to appreciate it.

Appreciation comes in all forms, but for me, it's often split between our roots and technology. I love old photographs, especially when they tie into family.  Black and white images are in all our roots in photography. There are few photos more fun to look at than old classic black and white portraits.

That's Sheila's great grandmother, Kitty Gentry on the left, and my great grandparents on the right.  My guess is there's about a ten-year span between when the images were taken, Kitty being first, around 1865.

As I follow the worldwide crisis with immigration today, I can't help but think about the story of my own family landing in NYC and getting off the boat from Russia. Then there were the challenges Sheila's family faced when her great grandfather married a full-blooded Cherokee. 

A few years ago I sat in on a terrific workshop with Beverly and Tim Walden. They talked about their portrait business. They position each portrait session as much more than a photograph but the creation of a fine art family heirloom. They're not creating stunning portraits, but art to be handed down from generation to generation. They even do a certificate of authenticity on the back, establishing its value as a memory to be savored for years to come.

We're an industry of magic, and as sappy as you might think it sounds, we help people stop time, capture memories and turn them into tangible moments to be cherished forever. Sheila and I love these two old photographs, and in fact, Kitty's in an antique frame and hangs in a corner in our home. 

I always suggest you use Throwback Thursday as a marketing tool in your blog to remind your target audience of the power of old photographs and the importance of capturing today's memories. But you also need to look at old images for yourself. In the day-in-day-out challenges of business, it's so easy to forget the value of what photography gives the world.

So, take the time today to dig through some of those old family prints and take a walk down Memory Lane!  You won't regret it.