3 Reasons Why Family Portraits are Important

The holiday season is upon us which subsequently means so is picture season. There is nothing like getting dressed up in your holiday-best to go galavanting around an open field, cheerfully smiling at your significant other and children like it is something you do on any given weekend.

All joking aside, I love family pictures. So much that I make my husband suffer through them one or two times a year. Fortunately, he has survived all instances.

Family pictures have been something I have done since I was a little girl. My mother would dress my brother and me in color-coordinating outfits, take us to a beautiful location where she would spend hours snapping picture after picture. Since this was before digital cameras, she would have to take three to four rolls of film to be developed, crossing her fingers that she captured at least one or two good shots. Having photos of me and my brother are something I cherish dearly now, but unfortunately, my mom and dad were not typically part of the pictures. Now that I am grown and have a family of my own, I wish they had been.

Being a mom has brought to light just how difficult it is to get into the picture because I am typically the one snapping them. But looking back at childhood photos and seeing how many I wish my mom and dad had been in with us, I try to make it a point to get into as many photo ops that I can!

There are many different reasons why family portraits should be a yearly tradition for you and your family; my top three are below.

1. Document Change

Families change drastically year to year, especially small children. One year can hold a whole lot of change so whether your family has changed by the birth of another child, the addition of a fur baby who gets to be in the photo, or just another trip around the sun for everyone, make sure to document it.

Eventually, your children will be grown, move out and get on with their own lives so make sure to hire a photographer to capture the time that you have together while you can. It will be a warm reminder of home for your child to fill their new apartment or home with family photos from their childhood.

2. A Time to Reminisce

Photographs capture a moment in time, whether they are ‘staged’ or off the cuff. When you look at them years down the road they will bring you right back to that day when your toddler was running around like a wild man with nothing but underwear and dress shoes on. Family photographs have the same ability to bring you back to a certain moment in time. They allow you to reminisce on the year they were captured and all the good and difficult things it held because both good and difficult times help shape us day to day and year to year. Family photos also give you a way to share those memories with future generations to come.

I always get our new photos printed and put into frames in our home. I keep the old ones tucked in the frame behind the newest addition and love looking at the previous years’ photos every time I remove the back to update the photo.

3. Life Happens, Capture It

If you have ever lost someone close to you I am sure one of the first things you did was look for photographs of that person. Those photos became one of the most important things in your life. The only way to have those is to make sure you capture your time with loved ones while you can. Don’t live behind your camera but make it a point to capture a photo of you and your family anytime you get together. You never know when the last time is that you will see someone, so make sure you have a memory to remember it by. Just like your memories and stories, photos are also a part of our life-long legacy.

So the next time you are thinking about doing family photos (or maternity, newborn, one year, etc etc!), I urge you to take the leap and do it! Even if you just have a friend snap a few pictures of your family on your front step, do it! Capture those precious moments while you can.