Are Your Walls Drawing A Blank?

This is a dilemma that has been facing me recently. I have had the pleasure of living with my boyfriend for the past few years, but when I moved in, his mom lived with us and all of her belongings covered the house (including the walls). She moved out in December, and now I have a bunch of blank walls! (and rooms under construction… )

As a photographer, you would think that I have a millions things to hang, right? Well, I realized that with all of the time I spend working on my clients’ images, I have neglected to print out images that I want to cherish walking through my house everyday. When I was younger, my mom had pictures of us everywhere, so that whenever we had people over, she could relive some of our happiest moments and relay the stories they reminded her of.

How many images do you have on your cell phone and computer and old computers that you may never look at again? I want my future generations to have something to be able to hold and look at and teleport to the way life used to be. I want them to laugh at how we dressed, be able to see landmarks that might not always be there, and get to see how much I looked like them at their age, like I do when I go to my mom’s house or look through albums at my ancestors.

Who remembers cassette tapes?? I was a master at those things! I would make mixes off of the radio, take them apart with a tiny screwdriver when they broke, and MacGyver them back together with scotch tape as carefully as a surgeon! I think I still have a couple of them in a box somewhere, but I don’t have any way to play them. The same thing is happening with CD’s. Most new laptops don’t even come with a drive to read them anymore. I don’t want my memories and images to get lost the way my mix tapes were. I don’t want my grandchildren holding an old external hard drive and saying, “I wonder what is on this old thing,” and not having a way to access it.

I hung a bunch of images in my studio a few months ago and now I am getting so creative and coming up with cool ideas on ways to display the images I want on the walls in my house! I never realized how small an 8×10 photograph seems when you go to hang it on a big wall! Last week I printed a bunch of different sized images out on my Canon Pro-100. That thing amazes me every time I use it! The rich colors, sharp detail, and intricate texture pop off of the page. My tax return afforded me the pleasure of ordering some metal prints too! Then I started checking out amazing Pinterest boards like this one for ideas! I also found some cool articles to get my creative juices flowing:

Cool Ideas To Display Family Photos on Your Walls

45 Creative DIY Photo Display Wall Art Ideas

27 Unique Photo Ideas That Will Bring Your Memories To Life

No matter what idea you choose to go with, the best place to start when deciding which images to print, and how large you want to make them, is the major colors in the room you will be hanging the images. Look at the color of your walls, floors, large furniture, etc. Complementary colors are the easiest route to go, but there are many ways you can make your room look the best, with regard to Color Harmonies . You can utilize these harmonies to coordinate the colors in many different ways. Example: If you choose to go with framed images, and you have a pretty neutral room, you could give the room a pop of color with different colored frames to complement the colors in each image.