Oxford Wedding and Lifestyle photographer - JUDI CHECKETTS : More than an Image

Wendy is soon to move back to her native New Zealand with her family and start her photography business. here she continues the circle of blogs from yesterday with her thoughts about the importance of getting images printed.

Life, love, laughter, tears, happiness, sadness, memories and history - this is what photographs are to me. I’m so lucky to have them, add to them and share them with my children.

Photographs to me are not just images - they are so much more then that. To me they are stories. Of course there are Photographs that are Art, and I have a love for these also but for different reasons - the emotions that they pull from me. I’ll leave this for another time.

I’m writing to this to as part of with a small group of gifted photographers, who do photography as a passion and share the love for beautifully crafted printed images and albums and now want to share with you why.

When I was a little girl I loved to pull out my Mum’s photo album from when she was young and surround myself with the family photo albums and framed images. I would look through the images, as I did so I would ask Mum the stories behind them. I’m sure Mum got tired of repeating herself, but I never got tired of listening. These stories were about her when she was a little girl growing up in England before moving to New Zealand, going to school in NZ and having her plaits dipped in the ink well, stories about my great grandmother who left Ireland to set up a life and end up running a boarding house as a single parent in London, beautiful images of my mum as a bridesmaid and then a bride. Then there were stores about myself, my siblings and my immediate family as we were growing up. Looking through the albums I learnt the stories, got to know my ancestors, learnt some history, which I now tell to my children.

I’m moving back to NZ after being away for 9 years and I can’t wait to pull out all the family albums again - sorry Mum, but I know my daughter will love it.

There are far to many treasured pictures and stories to share, so I will share just a few.

My great grandparent before they left Ireland and my grand grandfather was still around (awaiting image).

My grandparents before they were married - sometime in the 1930’s, with their brother and sister, having some fun on the beach trying of each others clothes. “In those days Women didn’t wear Trousers”.

A picture of my Mum before she left England at Trafalgar Square - one of the images that inspired me to travel and a family photo of my grandparents with my Mum and her siblings.

Photos were always around right for when I was smalI, either on wall or in an album.

This image reminds me of the bond I shared with my sister, which sadly has become a little lost alone the way.

These next images were discovered as an adult, but oh what a treasure indeed. Images that my grandfather had from the Second World War. Unfortunately he is no longer with us - but it makes me ask the questions and imagine the story behind them. Hopefully I will find some more about these soon.

I am happy to say that I invested in a fantastic wedding album, Queensbury, using a professional photographer - as I wanted to store and present those wonderful memories in the best way possible. I never gave this a second thought.

I have a baby album of each of my children and beautiful images on the wall, that I look at often, but not only me, my husband, my children, family, and my friends can all share the memories and stories. When I look at those images on the way - the ones of our wedding day and my children, I smile and take a couple of minutes to remember and it fills me with love and happiness.

I have since been on the other side of the camera for a Boudoir shoot and will now have an amazing (I still have to pinch myself) image of myself on the wall and a beautiful album as a gift to my husband - now that’s going to be something to share with my grand children!

Our new home will have images on the wall that remind me of the family stories, our history and I will add to these as time goes on. I will preserve the memories and stories and have more images to smile at and albums to go through.

Recently I read a few articles that talk about the digital age and about these memories being lost and even the images being lost. Would you more likely look through an album of magical wedding images or spend a lot longer wading through hundreds of images on the screen - once you have found them. Which one will you do, which one will your children do, and grandchildren? Will you ever get those beautiful images on the wall? Coincidentally I was talking to my Mum last week who told me that her computer had died - that was ok as she has bought another one, her only worry is can she get the images off the hard disk? I think, oh no, some memories lost.....

In this day, we have no time to print images and make albums. So take the time and every now and again, make the investment. Its worth it and they go on for generations to come.

I’m now looking forward to the next story in my life - an album of our family life in the UK before moving back to NZ.

If you like this blog post, please feel free to share. You can also find me on Facebook. So if you’d like to read the other chapters on this subject and follow our circle of blogs, my inspirational co-bloggers here:

My lovely, talented and inspiring host, JudiChecketts Photography, Oxfordshire: