The most common outcome of a photography session is a folder of files that nobody opens after the first fortnight. It is worth resisting.
Why print at all
A printed photograph gets looked at. A folder does not. That is the entire argument, and it holds up: the families who come back to us years later are almost always the ones with something on a wall.
There is a practical point too. Storage formats change, phones are lost, cloud accounts lapse. A print is a backup that does not require a password.
An album
Best for sessions with a narrative — a wedding, a full year of milestones, a ceremony. An album carries a sequence in a way that individual prints cannot, and it survives being handled by relatives.
Layouts go through one proofing round before printing. Expect to change something; almost everyone does.
Wall frames
Best for a single strong image. The discipline of choosing one is useful — it forces you to decide what the session was actually about.
Neutral, undated sets age best on a wall. A superhero theme will read as its year in a decade; a boho neutral portrait will not. This is the main reason we quietly recommend the plainest set on our list more often than the elaborate ones.
Loose prints
Underrated. A box of twenty prints costs little, gets passed around, and ends up on fridges and desks and in grandparents' wallets, which is where photographs do the most good.
Colour
Prints are produced by professional labs and colour varies slightly between print processes and screens. A small variance is normal rather than a defect — screens are backlit and paper is not.