The Power of Now & Preserving Your Legacy
What does your family’s photographic legacy look like? Do you have stacks of photo albums, shoe boxes full of old snapshots, CDs containing digital files, scrapbooks using archival methods? Or are you young enough to have all your special moments stored on your phone or Facebook? Are your photos the first thing you’ll grab in a fire emergency?
At the end of our lives, we have memories and photographs, the evidence of our existence. Some of us have more ~ books we authored, monuments to our work, art that we created, memorials, honors … but all of us have stories and photos.

Depending on when you were born, the photos from your life will represent the times. Heidi and I were born in the same year a few months apart. Heidi’s Dad is a photographer and cameraman; mine was a tattoo artist, machinist, and Marine. I think my Mom did all the photo taking, as there aren’t many photos of her and I together. Heidi has quite a few photos of her Mum taken by her Dad, which she cherishes.

I inherited our family’s Vivitar point and shoot when I was 7 and sent off to summer camp. One of the most fun things I remember doing as a child was going through the drive thru Fox Photo kiosk and picking up the envelopes with our name on them and pouring through the prints. We would then take the time to place them in those {awful} albums with the sticky glue pages and plastic cling. I’ve since had to rescue some photos from those albums and the glue stays on the back and the photos get bent … Not the best preservation method, those things.

Heidi’s Dad has always been a professional. She remembers being told to stand next to landmarks and pose often. Road trips took a little longer as Dad would want to stop frequently and jump out to get the perfect shot. Home movies were cinematic, complete with artsy zooms and pans … Many of her photos she has now are printed on lab paper; they’re in rich black and white tones, they are creatively composed, and there are lots of them.
Compared to the few photos I have of me and my Dad when I was a kid, Heidi has less. If I could make any recommendation to help preserve your family’s legacy, it’s pass the camera around! We hear from so many of our Mom clients that they are thrilled for our specialty because they are the ones who take the photos and they aren’t in any of the images. A Goddess Session is not only a gift to you, but also to your family who will SO appreciate having beautiful, professional images of you that they will cherish forever.

When we first started out, we hesitated to sell prints because of the environmental impact of the chemicals, materials, shipping, etc. We also wanted to do something a little different than what our industry was doing by not having a session fee and then a separate print requirement. Since, we have found a Bay Area green-certified print lab that offers beautiful products at an affordable price. We still don’t require a print order and, in fact, include a set of 4x6 prints of your Deluxe session with us.
Don’t get us wrong. We don’t require you to order prints, but we highly recommend it. We provide digital files of your images, but do you remember Beta, VHS, Floppy Discs, or Cassette Tapes? Information Storage and File Formats become obsolete in our lifetime. We would hate for you to have your images ONLY on your computer, hard drive, phone, or CD on the cusp of a technology revolution. Document your life in a tangible way that your family can enjoy for generations to come.

I would give anything to have more photos from my childhood. And I can’t attach enough value to an heirloom video like the ones Wendi from Swoon Films creates for our clients. Heidi has several beautiful movies {sans sound, because we’re that old} that her Dad just transferred to DVD for her, but I only have little 8mm snippets of me and my family in moving pictures format …
I do have some really cool framed photos of my Grandparents and older ancestors because there was a tradition of more formal photography back then. It was a fairly new technology, and like most things that are older, they were built to last. The paper was thick, the ink rich, the subjects committed. I love photography from long ago. Our kids and grandchildren will likely walk around with holographic images on some kind of robot device, so let’s leave them with something they will honor, love & marvel at.

It’s up to you to build a photographic legacy. Start now. Leave behind evidence of your life that you can be proud of. Don’t regret later not documenting this time, now. I can say without hesitation, I cherish my family photographs more than any other items. For my fortieth birthday, my Mom gave to me a gift that she called her most prized possession: a gorgeous photo of her mother, hand tinted and signed. It will be an heirloom that gets passed down indefinitely.
xoxo ~ Tara
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See some of Heidi’s and my family photo collection below.

My “newborn photo” looks nothing like images today where photographers specialize in studio art, creative posing, trendy props, and gorgeous macro details.

This ridiculously cute photo of Heidi is creatively composed, rich in tones and detail … While the preservation is still not perfect, you can tell it was taken with loving intention.

My mom with a 70’s appropriate backdrop and Me in my fashionable stroller … And we were all Yellow.

Heidi & her sister, Kim and Heidi with her Mum on the right … similarly preserved & printed images as the ones above of Me and my Mom … My most favorite little Heidi that ever was on the far Left … Gah!

Me and My brother … Clearly, I haven’t changed a bit and my love of Star Wars endures. So wish this image wasn’t in shades of red.

Heidi hasn’t changed a bit either. Still silly and glammin’ it up!

Me with my Dad and then my brother and I sleepin’ with Dad …

Heidi & I both adore the nature of black & white photos. The richness is like nothing else and it endures through the years. Heidi’s Mum on the Left and Little Heidi on the Right.

A scanned B&W of My Mom {right} and My Auntie … I tried to scan my old family photos in just to preserve them a bit, but the old scanner technology I used back in the day is still sub-par for long-term preservation …

This is the first ever photo taken of Heidi and I not long after we met. It’s all grainy, my head looks freakishly giant, Heidi looks a little frightened, and it’s preserved forever digitally on the web site that is flickr.
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