I’ve got so used to not printing photos, it’s hard to imagine how I’ll break the habit

Like eating fruit or exercising, I know I should be doing it more often. But still, it’s hard to muster the enthusiasm when gratification is instant and served to you on a plate. Or to be more precise, via a backlit LCD screen.

I’m talking about printing photos. Or, rather, not printing photos.

At one time, whatever was created when the shutter fired had to be printed, made into a slide, scanned or viewed via a lightbox, to be seen. However, for well over a quarter of a century now, for most of us, that’s not been the case.

Digital got us closer to instant photography than instant print film cameras from Polaroid or, latterly, Fujifilm, Lomography or Leica, ever did.

But, because we can see our captures instantly, arguably a lot of the magic of photography has been sacrificed in favour of practicality.

Or, at least, for a long time, I’ve felt I no longer need to make photographic quality prints of everything. Over the past 20 years I’ve printed less… until I’m now at the stage where, bar the occasional spot of home printing, it feels odd to order a professionally produced print of anything.

And when I have, especially if shooting on film and needing to have a roll processed, I’m shocked at what it now costs.

But it’s not really about what it does or doesn’t cost – it’s simply that I’ve fallen out of the habit.

Perhaps it’s partly because we’re all so unrestricted in our photo taking in the digital age that I’m simply overwhelmed by the volume of images accumulated. If I were to start printing in earnest again, I wouldn’t know where to start. Or stop.

As it is, my once regularly produced print wallets stopped around 20 years ago – and even then, production was probably a hangover from my habitual behaviour when it was film, not digital, that was photography’s dominant medium.

I feel like only a massive shock would get me regularly printing photos again.

Something beyond even the erratic behaviour of my aged Apple Mac, which currently has the familiar loading bar stopping mid-screen as the system just ‘hangs’. Now, although I believe I have most of its files – including hundreds, possibly thousands of photographs – backed up, I’m not 100% sure.

And it’s only when I come to look for that one beloved photo and cannot find it, that I’ll wonder if it’s trapped on that dysfunctional drive and be irritated by the fact that I cannot quickly check.

If only I’d made a print of everything that felt valuable to me.

But the habit of printing has now turned into the habit of not printing.

And it’s a hard habit to break.

If you’ve similarly fallen out of love with printing photos, what would it take for you to get started again? Leave a comment below!

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