Ohio Wedding Photographer | Ashleigh Grzybowski

As a kid I loved looking through our family photo albums and boxes. There were thousands of photographs to pour over and even more at Grandparents’ to explore. Some photographs were recent that I remember but the photographs of my parents and grandparents as children and young adults grabbed my full attention.

Until seeing the photographs, I never gave much thought that my parents and grandparents lived a lifetime before my siblings and I arrived. For me, they were always my “parents” and “grandparents”. Never children playing in the backyard, opening gifts at Christmas, cutting cake at their wedding or learning how to raise children. These photographs gave me a rare window to see into their years before me. To see them growing up and the memories that shape them into the parents and grandparents I know them as.

The most profound set of photographs I laid my hands on were in the book my Granny created of her and my Grandpa’s family history. Years of research poured into one book that documented all the information she was found to pass down the family legacy. This book wasn’t just an album of photographs, it was a window in the layers of family history that my very existence was built on. I can still see the image of my Granny and Grandpa standing in front of their car, newly married, wearing glasses and my Granny in her white and black shoes. It is all right there – for me to look at and grasp a piece of my grandparents every time I open that album.

These photographs are more than pieces of printed paper to me. They hold significant value that can’t be replaced. As a photographer today, I have seen how digital images have become so common and almost viewed as dispensable. The thought of “I can always take another picture on my phone” is engrained in our minds. We have the amazing ability to take pictures at the tap of our thumb. With this has also come the habit of keeping all (or most of) our pictures in digital form – on our phone, on our computer or living in a digital gallery.

As one of the most photographed generations we have little to pass down to our future generations. All these digital images – our most prized images of loved ones – are sitting on our phones and computers which don’t get passed down like photographs. As a photographer and mom I have been guilt of this too many times to count.

After seeing my small child comb over photographs I do have printed, I decided to make it a priority to invest in printing our family photographs as part of our legacy. I want my children to have a window in the lives of their parents during our season of dating and marriage before kids. Our marriage with kids and a window into their childhood as they grew up with their grandparents, cousins and family.

I’m sharing three ways I’m moving my family’s favorite digital images to physical photographs as we continue to build our family legacy.

Prints

This is the easiest way to move digital images from phones and computers to tangible form. I recommend taking time every 3-4 months to print your favorite images and add them to your family photograph box. These boxes are inexpensive and can help protect photographs over the years. Printing images can happen at the beginning or end of each season or penciled into your schedule. This doesn’t need to fall on just you. Invite your significant other to pick favorite images to print as well! You can even make it a date night and pick the images together!

Yearly Albums

As you take pictures through out the year, create a digital album on your phone and computer of your favorite images for that year. It can be as easy as clicking the “heart” icon after snapping an image or saving high resolution images from your online gallery. At the end of the year, take all the images in the favorite folder and create an album for that year.

Milestone Albums

For the milestone events I recommend working with a photographer to create an heirloom album that is custom designed to tell the story of each milestone. These can include your wedding day, birth of each child, welcoming children into your family through adoption, graduation and any other milestones that are so important to you and your hiring a professional photographer. Once the final images are ready for you to view, the photographer can (& will happily) customize an album to tell the story of your milestone. The custom options in these albums range from cover fabric to engraving and so much more. Since these albums represent the milestones in your life, they make for beautiful decor in your living room and are designed to fit within your home style.

Ashleigh Grzybowski is a Wedding Photographer based in Columbus, Ohio and serving couples across Ohio.  Ashleigh specializes in producing timeless, high quality imagery for kind-hearted couples who desire a warm, boutique experience honoring their life-long commitment and legacy.