Why do we need to print our family portraits?

But let's delve deeper into this.  When we don't print our pictures, we forget about them.  We aren't sharing them with our children and family.  Sure, Facebook pops up memories for us to look back at.  But do you show that memory to your kids?  Or do you share it on your news feed and move on?  Are you talking about your history, who you were, what you were interested in, and what you did before the kids came around?  Are you talking about those who are no longer with you?  This is where I am concerned.  We are losing the art of sharing an oral history.

 

Not so long ago, oral history was how we learned.  There wasn't Google to answer the endless questions of a learning brain.  Families sat around the dinner table and shared their day and stories of the people who came before them.  As photography became more readily available, we used photographs to add to the oral history.  When the film was affordable, you would send off a roll of film and anxiously await your 3x5 or 4x6 prints.  The excitement of getting your film back and seeing how your pictures came out was contagious.  You would go through your photographs and share them with your family.  You would display your photos in a frame, album, or on the fridge.  As a young student, my walls were covered with pictures I had taken.  But with putting those pictures up also came talking about them and sharing those memories with my family and friends.  Looking through albums, my parents would tell me stories of life before I could remember things for myself.  The pictures added to my family's oral history and cemented memories that would have been forgotten.