An enduring family portait

This family photo has survived untold decades, although it is starting to show some wear (and has a rip on the right). I'd like to tell you that it is my great-great grandpappy Jebidiah Overman, his wife Hannah Patience Sampson-Overman, and their son Willy James Overman. But the fact is, I have no idea who these people were!

The image was in a beautifully appointed frame when I first saw it, and that's what caught my eye as I drove past. Someone was throwing the framed photo away. Me, being an unashamed Curb Shopper, swooped in to rescue the frame. The photo was a pleasant bonus. I forgot I had the photo – since removed from its safe haven in the frame – until I rediscovered it recently. The image is inked over in several places (note the man's strange hands and the gloves drawn over the woman's hands), surely an early Photoshop user in the making. There were no telltale incriptions to firmly date or place the image or name its subjects. I plan to do some research into at least the type of image and when the aforementioned embellishments were common.

With today's modern printing processes and inks, the hope is that family portraits will be enjoyed for generations. That was probably the case with the antique portrait, although I'm guessing the lack of sentimentality from its previous owners was more because it was an antique-store find rather than a treasured family heirloom. The point being, all those digital photos of your family you're taking now? Print some of them! Stick them in an album. Make them into a photo book! Have your favorites printed large and frame them, enjoying them on your wall. Out of sight out of mind ... we forget about photos we've taken, but also hard drives crash. CDs scratch. Photos can so easily be lost forever. All we have to do is take a cue from the past and see that printing is a lasting way to preserve photos that also lets us enjoy them.

Better yet, why not take the time to have a professional family portrait made this summer? Whether you want a traditional photograph more akin to the one pictured above (without those whack lace gloves) or something that shows your family's unique personalities in a favorite setting, give me a call! There will be no time exactly like now. Preserve the moment now, pass down that portrait through generations and, maybe someday, it will show up on the curb for someone else to enjoy.