The value of printing your family photos

Growing up, I spent hours looking at the albums my Mom made with images we snapped on our many adventures. Then, we’d drive 15 minutes to drop off our disposable camera at the Walmart photo lab, and then return a WEEK later to pick up our prints! Usually, there would only be 10 decent images out of the 20 image roll of film, haha!

In college, I was the girl who ALWAYS had her point-and-shoot camera, and I took it everywhere.

Once I was married, my husband and I invested quite a bit of money on our wedding day photography (and our photographer was incredible!!) But, guess how many images we ended up printing from our wedding day? Just ONE!! Before we had kids, we had exactly ONE printed photo from our wedding day. And did we ever get around to making a wedding album? You guessed it – NOPE.

Now, we’ve been married 11 years, and our wedding images are on CDs…and the computers we’ve had for the last 7 years don’t even have a CD drive, so we can’t even access the images!

My point is: technology changes and in the future, we may not even be able to access the hard drives we have our precious digital images of memories. So in 10 years, or in 20 years, when our children are grown & having children of their own… When they are wanting to see your favorites memories, will they have a tangible piece of artwork to remember these beautiful days by?

There are many reasons to display family portraits in your home!

I’ll list a few in this blog, as well as share a few ideas as well as what artwork I offer to my clients as a full-service family photographer in Virginia Beach.

There is no denying that we live in a digital world. While we can’t deny how cool it is to have so much information at our fingertips, one thing is for certain: printed photos can be enjoyed so much more and for so much longer than their digital counterparts.

Let me ask you a question: do we really want to spend more time scrolling on our phones just to be able to enjoy the photos we invest in? Or do we want our children to have to keep an old, dusty hard drive of our precious memories so they can look back on their childhood?

I didn’t think so!

Displaying Your Family Photos at Home

Studies have shown that children who are raised in homes where their walls are decorated with family portraits grow up with a strong sense of belonging and self confidence, as researched by Dr. Jaclyn Gullota, PHD. (You can read more about the study and more reasons why displaying your family photos in your home is valuable here!) 

Now that I my own kids, they LOVE flipping through our family photo albums! Spending the time snuggled up on the couch, pointing out details in their favorite photos and seeing how much they’ve all grown, I get flashbacks to a simpler time when I sat next to my own Mom, flipping through the albums she always made for my and my sister.

My Why: helping clients display their photos

As a full service photographer in Virginia Beach, my mission is to provide families with a joyful portrait experience and to fill their family’s hands and the walls of their homes with expertly designed, hand-crafted heirloom artwork.

My kiddos also adore when I put up our new framed portraits in our gallery wall every year! I invest in hiring another professional photographer EVERY year to ensure my babies are photographed at least once a year, with ME in the photos, too. <3 Seeing their portraits with them surrounded by their favorite people on the walls they get to walk past everyday – is something that brings us all so much joy!

Ensuring your children have a way to see themselves in portraits – beside their favorite people – is an investment and one that I cherish being able to help with!

Custom Framed Portraits

Imagine returning to once-in-a-lifetime moments every single day…

When we turn your family photos into artwork and fill the walls of your home with beautiful frame portraits of your family, you get to relive those joy-filled moments again and again.

I love designing custom frames for my clients! Frames are one of the most popular options for my clients who are wanting to preserve their family memories while enjoying them everyday within their homes.

3 options for custom framing to display family portraits in your home:

1. Gallery Walls

Otherwise known as Storywalls – to fill up a large space and build throughout the years, can include milestones such as wedding images, into maternity and newborn, and continuing into family milestones as the family grows. Amazing for large rooms; a continual project that can continue to grow and be re-arranged as the family grows.

2. Statement frames

Created with an artistic flare, statement frames can create a striking focal point in a room. These are large frames, often of big milestones or when the family is “complete.”

3. Starter gallery walls

With just a couple frames – perfect to start a gallery wall when you welcome a newborn and know you’ll be wanting to add frames after each milestone in the first year, and then annually each passing year.

Custom framing preserves your favorite portraits for a lifetime.

When it comes to choosing custom framing – I hold my client’s hands so they are not overwhelmed with the many options for customization, all while ensuring they get something that aligns with their home decor and design preferences. I use a special design app that allows for us to perfectly place their images into a mockup of their frame choice to ensure what they choose will fit perfectly within their home and around artwork and framing that is already there.

Heirloom Albums

Heirloom albums are perfect for telling the story of a season of life when you just can’t choose a handful of images and want to preserve them all!

1. Baby’s First Year album

Telling the story of your baby’s first year in all the milestones! Members of my First Year Collective (you can see more about the membership in this blog about baby B’s first year!) get an album credit at each session to help build baby’s first album! This heirloom album will often include images from the maternity session, newborn photos, 6 months when baby is sitting up independently and then first birthday milestone photos and family photos at that time.

2. The Annual Family album

This is for the whole family and will include images from each of your annual family portrait sessions. Put lots of candid images in there as well as the images that were some of your favorites, but you might not have framed. Start a volume series and add a new album each year!

3. The Companion album

As shown below in the black and white image – my clients love the companion album! They are mini replicas of your heirloom album, perfect for tiny hands that want their own copy, or gifts for Grandparents (or both!). Make companion albums from either baby’s first year, individual session albums and annual family albums.

Heirloom albums are hand-made in the USA of the finest, archival quality paper, hand-bound. Guaranteed to last a lifetime, the heirloom album is an incredible way to enjoy your photos that you can enjoy daily, and pore over when family comes to visit.

Conclusion: ideas for how to display family portraits in your home

There are so many reason for why you should display family portraits in your home, and now have a few ideas of what you might want to do to have a tangible way to enjoy your family photos, YAY!]

Most of my clients come to me to help them get their memories OFF of their phones and hard drives and INTO their homes so they can enjoy their memories. At the top of this blog, there is an image of a 5 frame gallery wall and I would be remiss if I didn’t share my client’s testimonial she sent me after I installed it in her dining room.

Client Testimonial

“My experience with Chelsey Kraus Photography has been nothing short of amazing. You won’t find a soul more kind than Chelsey. She is very skilled at what she does, of course, but I love that she personalizes your session from start to finish. Her service is top-notch. We recently had a family session and purchased a 5-frame gallery wall, along with our digital images. Every single time I walk by the wall, I just smile! I love that the personalities of each of my kids (all very different!) are captured perfectly. Because of the amount of prep (and level of personalization with the approach she takes), it is as if she already knew my children and how to make their personalities shine.
Take the photos, make the investment. Time is fleeting. Chelsey knows how to capture it flawlessly.” -Michelle, family portrait client in 2024

Interested in family portraits in Virginia Beach?

Chelsey Kraus Photography is a full-service family, newborn and maternity photographer located in Virginia Beach. The Signature Session experience includes complimentary use of the client wardrobe and professional hair and makeup for Mom on session day; an effortless & joyful photo experience and in-person or virtual gallery reveal and artwork design appointment so we can customize gallery walls and albums to ensure your family’s legacy can be preserved for the next generation, and also enjoyed daily until that day!

Learn more about the Signature Session experience with CKP.

Ready to book your session? YAY! Contact me to book your session here.