This morning I noticed an apartment makeover in my Facbook feed. I shot Therese and Oskar-Ture’s wedding outside Stockholm last year, you can see it here if you want. As I scrolled through the images of their amazing apartment, I noticed the prints on their living room wall and my heart skipped a beat. In their perfect home, on their perfect wall, I saw first one, then two of my photos. Images we created together last summer in Stockholm. And you know what? It made me proud and very happy. It’s not very often as a photographer I get to see my images “after they grow up”. They leave my computer on a DVD or USB drive, but after that they’re gone. Many of my couples order one of my books too, so sometimes I get to see my images printed which is the way i love seeing them.
There’s something magical about a printed image. When I grew up my mother made albums from our holiday snaps and sometimes when I’m home, I go through them. Those images from my childhood are worth more to me than any jpeg on my many hard drives. Crappy snaps with date stamps of me and my cousins playing dress up in our summer house on Gotland bring me right back there and I cherish those photos immensely.
If you leave your photos on a disk or your hard drive, your images will gradually fade into oblivion. The images are still there in that folder, but you never look at them and the photographer in me quietly questions why you paid to have me there on your day if you didn’t intend to do something with your photos.
Print your photos, my friends. Put them on walls, on fridges or in books, but just print them, ok? Every time you walk past that wall, you will remember that day and smile.
And one day your kids will thank you too.
photo: Therese Winberg
Jonas, this is SO true. Thank you for this wonderful blog post. Will send it to my customers :-). Best from hamburg, Kathrin
Well said.
Amen. Amen. Amen. Och heja Jonas. Print is not dead. And there is nothing more thrilling than being able to touch and feel a photo, see it exist in a real form rather than only as electronic pixels. Yes, I so agree.
So well said Jonas! I often get a bit sad when packaging up for clients and wonder if the photos are really ever going to make it past Facebook!
AMEN Jonas
couldn’t agree more. love that apartment too, major home envy
WOW.
This house is amazing.
I went through all my folders and I was thinking the same thing.
Thank you for the motivation !
Completely true. Printed photos will never go out of style, even with the iPads and futuristic slideshow frames that will probably end up on walls somedays. A physical print to hold or book to read says a lot. Great looking room too!
Printed images are really something different than jpeg’s. It’s true!
Our house is full of your printed photos Jonas…. Thank you.
beautifully said. if ever there was a truism, that was it. so true. every year i make an album for our family which our kids treasure right now, though in years to come those albums will become family heirlooms.
Love this so much, Jonas!
So true! And how good does it look!!
This is so, absolutely true. Physical prints will always hold a timeless value.
Great analogy and spoke with so much truth and reality of the impacts in a digital world. My favourite bit is when you say quote ” it leaves me wondering why they hired me to photograph them in the first place if they are never going to print their images”. That is so true, where is the value in photography if your not going to share it or embrass it yourself.
I could not agree with you more! I love to print and always, always tell my clients to print and print big!
Every so often I include actual printed photos into the package as well.
I love how their TV is camouflaged by printed images… very cool.
Amen, Jonas.
Ahhh! So true! I firmly believe your images should be displayed in your home for all to see – not on a disc in your desk drawer
I am a little bit in love with that set of single-tier lockers. The muted colour really compliments the rest of the room. Where did they get it? I would love one for my own home.
I totally agreed on what you said. I gonna to print out my 2 lovely boys photos and paste them on my wall. Thank you.
Beautiful :)
Very well written, I enjoyed that.
Agreed: it’s a beautiful feeling seeing them out in the world in their intended habitat.
so very true, this is why I plan to add prints to my collects, what ever the collection.
gracias por el consejo mi amigo, ahora en adelante eso es lo que voy hacer es la mejor forma de disfrutar mis imágenes
Well said. I love our few printed images, even if they aren’t the best and can’t be replaced with new images without tossing the old… I’m still glad to have something on the wall.
Love to hear these words. As a lover of photography and printed photos and a mother/grandmother who still gathers up the printed photo and puts them in books for future generations.
totally unrelated, but I have that map of manhattan in my office too.
and yeah, I agree. trying to be better about this personally.
Totally agree, I am a fan of printed photographs and I had been making albums since I was sixteen, enjoying a lot each time one of my kids take one and ask me about some picture. Love your wedding photography, thanks for share…..
[…] las ich den Beitrag von Jonas Peterson. Er zeigt, wie wichtig es ist, die Bilder auszudrucken und nicht nur auf der Festplatte oder […]
indeed. I love making prints — of my own photos, and of others’ who’ve taken them of me.
So true…..I’d hate to think people could lose all their files from a wedding too. Harder to misplace a large print than a thumb drive or disk
Terrific work. Very inspiring and creative. Love to look at your pictures.
[…] photographer Jonas Peterson presents a simple, yet overlooked solution: print your best work. Creating physical copies of […]
True, well said.
[…] -Jonas Peterson from post https://jonaspeterson.com/personal/images-grow-jpegs/ […]
Love the apartment and couldn’t agree more, looking for some old cameras for my studio and there they are!! Thanks for sharing this.
Awesome! Really very nice ..
This post is very wonderful!
Wow! Lovely !!! Really beautiful….
Really nice blog post. Thanks for sharing.
Nice post that gave me some fresh feelings.
Fantastic color, depth, and composition. Thanks!
Thank you for these simple yet amazing post….