I read this article on the Huffington Post and it expressed so well how I feel about photos in general that I need to share it with all of you.
If you’re engaged to be married, then quick, tell me why it’s worth it to have an engagement photo session?
I was reading a thread on a wedding forum where brides weighed in about that. And all the comments were offering the same two or three opinions:
“It’s a chance to get comfortable with the photographer,” “can use it for the save the date,” “it’s a way to see how I photograph.”
And there were those who saw no value in it at all. “What for?” “Why bother?” “Who needs it?”
But there’s something big about engagement photos that no one ever thinks of. No bride, no groom, no photographer, ever seems to consider.
Because consider this: here’s this little window of time in your life. A slice of time that perhaps may be only a few months to a few years long. Not a lot of time at all, really, compared to your entire life.
But yet what happened in this small, tiny, sliver window of time is disproportionately huge.
In fact, something’s happened that impacts the rest of your entire life.
In that little window of time, tiny little miracles happened.
Because in that tiny little window of time, you found someone. And they found you.
You fell in love. They fell in love with you.
And you both chose to make a life with each other. Commit to each other. Maybe bring a new family line into this world.
This changes the course of both your lives. And correspondingly like a ripple effect in a pond it affects everyone around you. And in time, the descendants you’ve brought forth by virtue of your commitment, will affect everyone in the future, until the end of time. Because as your generations go out into the world they will heal, help, sacrifice, influence, and in many ways touch the world around them.
You have literally changed the course of the world.
That’s why I can say your engagement is huge.
And to photograph this historic chapter of your life, to have this time forever preserved so it’s there to be seen whenever you wish to pull back the curtain of time and revisit this time in your life and feel the emotions again…
Priceless.
Because photos aren’t for today. People who see engagement photos as a mere test shoot for the wedding or as a way to get familiar with being photographed are seeing photos as only for today.
But photographs are for the rest of our lives. There’s the joy it brings when your memories have dimmed to be able to see these times again. And there’s something magical about being able to literally show your memories to someone new. Someone who probably hasn’t even been born yet. And to be able to say, “Look. This is me and your grandfather when we were young, at the beginning of our love.”
Not only to visit again the beautiful, historic times of your life, but in time, for all your generations to see from whom they came, and the love they came from, too.
And that’s the real reason to have photos like these made.
Article: The Real Reason to Have an Engagement Photo Made // Author: G.E. Masana