The Staying Power of Photographs

© Yevhenii Kukulka

One of the wonderful things about social media is the way it expands what we experience. 

The video below is a perfect example. Shared in the ShutterFest Forum on Facebook by Connie Mason Etter, I never would have known about it had I not run across her post. I ran across this in May, but it got buried on my desktop and was never shared. Even though it's had almost a million views on YouTube, I'm betting most of you have never seen it.

I was under the impression the life expectancy of a latent image was at best 10-20 years. Obviously my information was wrong, since these are over seventy years old. Now, think about everything from the mystery of who the original photographer was, to finding the rolls and seeing the images for the very first time. It's an exciting project.

Go one step further - think about the power of your own images. You're each client's personal historian documenting a moment in their lives. It's a heavy responsibility, but an incredible opportunity to leave a mark on your world.

Being a photographer isn't about taking pictures, it's about capturing memories and NEVER compromising on the quality and effort that goes along with each click of the shutter. Paraphrasing my good buddy Scott Bourne from a presentation years ago:

"Photograph like each image is the last piece of your work anybody is ever going to see."