PARENT OPINION: 'What I learned about preserving memories from my parents.’

I remember back in my teens, when I was living at home with my parents, how embarrassed I used to be when any of my friends would come into the house.            

My mum absolutely loved showing them pictures of me in her photo albums. She was so proud that she was able to show snapshots of my childhood to my friends. 

But I would try to get them out of the house as quickly as possible, mortified.

I remember just like it was yesterday when Neil, now my husband, came to my parents’ house for dinner for the first time. 

It horrified me he could see all the unfashionable clothes and shoes I had worn in some photos, the hairstyles, the silly poses we used to do thinking we were so cool back then, and the photos of my youth that I felt so self-conscious being in. Gosh, that list continues. 

It wasn’t until I had a child of my own that I really understood how precious those photos in Mum’s beloved 30+ albums are. 

How grateful I am that she and Dad had carried a camera with them to all the countries we had lived in. How grateful I am that my parents had captured every moment growing up, some seemingly mundane at the time (just us at home, or in the backyard), unaware of how important it was to preserve that memory.

They honestly made sure they took photos of all the big and small moments, so that one day their children could show them to their own children. It has kept my childhood memories alive.

These albums mean so much to me now. When we’ve all been together, sitting around the same table, we’ve revisited memories and my parents have retold many stories; all prompted by looking at one single photo from a family album, or a framed moment on display at my parent's home. And these moments of reflection have made us laugh and have invoked many misty-eyes.

I’ve been able to relive memories of my grandparents who have all passed away now, and get a sense of who my parents were when they were growing up; photos of their parents, their childhoods, their adventures, their wedding day, university graduations, my mum’s multitude of awards with track and field events. So many of the photos show momentous occasions that happened before I was ever born and if it wasn’t for the photo albums, I may never have known much about these moments.

Now, whenever I go back to my parents’ home in Sydney, the albums are often the things my family and I reach for instead of turning on the TV. 

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Nia, our eldest daughter who’s now 4 years old, absolutely loves seeing photos of me when I was a child. 

She gets so excited that I used to be a child, just like her. 

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She loves all the outfits, and shoes, the silly poses, and the funny faces. What a treasure it is that we have all these printed photos. 

Back in my childhood days, there were no smartphones or digital cameras, no filters, no editing apps and no delete buttons. 

I remember using our Fujifilm film camera, waiting however long it took to use up all the shots on the roll of film before we could get the photos developed at the shops.

I remember my parents had boxes and boxes of photos that they had developed, and my mum, on her days off, would spend hours and hours putting photos in an orderly manner, and then arranging them into photo albums. 

The albums would be sorted by years and the country we lived in (we travelled quite a bit growing up). Last I remember, I had 14 albums dedicated to me ('Nilu 1', 'Nilu 2'...). 

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Those albums travelled in suitcases every time we moved to a new country. My mum took so much pride in them, and to this day she still prints photos and cherishes her albums deeply. 

Reflecting back on my Mum’s love of capturing family moments and putting them into albums, makes me wonder what younger generations will be like with capturing and sharing cherished family memories.

We live in such a digital world, where we have thousands of photos stored on our phones or computers and yet every single photo we take is a memory that, without being printed, may become long forgotten moments.

I am grateful that my parents instilled their love of physical photos in me and my sister growing up, because being able to cherish the past through our family albums is very sentimental and important to me. I am so happy my mum continued the tradition in our family of printing photos, and putting time into those photo albums.

One day we will lose many of these reminders of the moments we've all had together, but the photos we have taken, and the stories that have been shared will live on. We take photos as a return ticket to a moment otherwise gone.

People don’t tend to think about printing their favourite moments as often as my parents’ generation took and developed photos. It makes me sad to think that my children’s children may not experience the same joy I did when going through my family photo albums.

I encourage you to print all of your beautiful and most treasured memories, so you can remember the special moments and keep them alive and around you to pass on your stories.

The kids in our extended family are already doing this in my house. We spend time together, flipping through the photo albums that I've now created; answering questions about who this person is, and where this place is, or how old we were in that photo. 

We're reliving the family road trips that took place before they were born, and the adventures that were formative to their parents and aunties growing up. Our little loves can relive our youth, and see all the versions of ourselves that came before.

When we have friends over, we've even flipped through the albums over a wine (oh, how the cycles repeat!), and they've even seen my 'growing up' photos of who I was in a past life, before parenthood. Yes, those very same photos that I was once mortified by when my parents showed my friends!

Printed photos are such precious things.

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They capture moments of joy, sadness, love and all the emotions in between. They give us so much. 

We rely on the past generation to shape our next generation. And I don't want all of the big and little moments to be among the thousands of photos buried on my phone. 

I intend on continuing to print and make photo albums, sharing the stories behind the pictures with our families and friends. I still get my photos printed with Fujifilm to keep family traditions, that my parents started, alive.

For me, it’s my love of capturing moments on our digital camera (and sometimes my phone) when I’m together with the people I love, so I can print and display them in our home. I want our walls to be full of colour and life, and moments for storytelling.

It’s about never wanting to regret not taking more photos to look back on. It’s the importance of having trinkets and reminders of loved ones displayed (like framed photos and personalised photo gifts); it’s the sentimental love of photo albums and not letting albums become a "thing of the past".

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We're all about Fujifilm in this house, it'll be no surprise! We've used their photo printing services to turn some of our favourite photos of the kids into prints and gifts – it's the best gift idea really to have on rotation especially when gifting for Father's Day and to the grandparents. 

For printed photos around our home, we order online via one of their partner retailer apps and get them delivered to us. You can print your Fujifilm beauties in-store and online at places like Big W, Harvey Norman, Officeworks and a range of independent photo specialty retailers. 

Fujifilm's photo printing technology has been created with over 80 years of knowledge and expertise which shows in how clear and vibrant their photo prints are.

As well as photo prints, we've created a few canvas prints with Fujifilm which are displayed in our home (they're always beautiful talking points when we have loved ones over to our house). Fujifilm also has a wide range of personalised gifts where you can add your photos on items such as mugs and keyrings. 

Last year we made a 2021 calendar for the kids’ grandparents featuring our favourite family photos. We will definitely have to do the same for 2022 as the calendar was such a big hit.

As a mumma myself, nothing compares to having photos of our little loves around the house. Seeing a memory framed, displayed or in a physical photo album is such much more special that seeing it on a phone’s camera roll or a laptop screen. 

Memories deserve to be revisited, time and time again. We love printing ours, so we don’t let our treasured memories get away.

Fujifilm knows that your memories are precious and there's no better way to remember your special moments than to print and preserve them. Find where to print your photos with Fujifilm to turn your home into a gallery of your memories, or to create personalised gifts.

Feature Image: Supplied.