What will your Family Portrait Legacy say about you?   Have you considered how important portraits, photos, actual printed images are to your descendants ?  

My daughter recently joined Ancestry and found out that my husband's grandmother was related to one of the past US Presidents.  There was a photo of him and she shared it, I was shocked by the resemblance I could see in my husband's older brother and some resemblance to my husband. 

Most of us remember looking through old photo albums, going through a box of loose prints that our grandmother had, seeing relatives we never knew before. Do we have that for our own children?  How many printed photos do you have to pass down to your children and grandchildren?  What will your photo legacy be?

I've noticed how my young grandchildren, just three years old (I have three that age) like to look at family photos in my home, they point to them on the wall and say who they are, they seem to understand they are important to me because I have a photo of them on a shelf or a portrait on my wall.  If a three year old can understand this concept, how do you think that an older child feels when they see themselves on display in your home.  What will your portrait legacy be to your child?

Will she look at a portrait of you and her and think..."My mom really loves me!"   Will you look at it and think "Does she know how much I really love her and how beautiful she is to me?"

Will your son see that special portrait of just him and dad and think...."My dad always said I could lean on him"  Will you think about how God blessed you with not only that son, but others as well.

How about our parents, children and our siblings, how will they remember us in portraits?  I have an image I want to do of myself, my mom and my sisters; I haven't done it yet, but this year I hope to.   I've been blessed to photograph family, friends and clients with a parent, children, sometimes four generations.  Those images are precious to me and I hope that my clients will treasure them and pass them down through generations to come.

So, I ask you.  How important is your family to you?  How important is it to have a Family Portrait Legacy, something to treasure in your home now and something to leave behind.  Don't wait.  Make sure you capture time in a portrait; faces change, families change, children grow, family members go home to be with the Lord.  Take time for a Family Portrait.  It's important, not only for today but for years and generations to come.

 - Cindy Mitchell,  Mitchell Photography