Eight uses for your mini session photos - | Wiltshire Family Photographer |

Mini sessions are a great opportunity to update your family photos for the season, in case you’re wondering why check out my blog ‘Five benefits of mini sessions’! But what do you do with your images once you have them? We’re all guilty of leaving digitals on our hard drive for years!

Once you’ve had your 15-20 minute session you’ll be sent a gallery with a good selection of photos. I know I promise 12 but usually I over deliver with far too many gems to hold back. There’ll be options to purchase products and prints straight from your gallery, but you can also order digital images and give yourself some flexibility. Here’s a few ideas on how you can make the most of them:

1 - Newsletters

Okay, this one’s quite Christmas focused, I don’t know many people who send out a Mother’s day newsletter! In our family growing up, every year we’d get to November and realise that, once again, we’d made it a whole year and didn’t have a decent photo of the four of us to put in the Newsletter. Luckily, my dad is quite the artist, so we had the joy of filling up our letters with amusing cartoons to match the anecdotes. For most people, however, this newsletter was the only update on our beautiful faces they got every year, so they definitely missed out!

2- Frames and prints

Classic options, but still great. There are frames for everyone’s taste out there, both for standing and for hanging on the walls. Even with printing, you can print in all sorts of sizes, finishes (glossy, matte, metallic…) and qualities. I offer luxe matte prints in a variety of sizes, which you can frame yourself, and a selection of frames; but if you want to do things differently, you can just order digitals and do things your way! These are a great way of sharing your images with all your guests, or giving them as ready made gifts.

3 - Cards

These don’t just have to be for Christmas! Mother’s day/Grandmother’s cards, birthday cards, thank you cards… We get so many cards these days, whether physical or e-cards, so why not make them a little more personal?

4 - Calendars

You should get a good selection of images, with group shots of the family, sibling shots, individual shots of the kids and even photos of the parents together (yes, really!) I’m pretty sure this would have been Christmas presents sorted for my grandparents every year over! There are so many different options for design - hanging calendar, desk calendar, portrait, landscape, patterned, classic… Just order the digitals you want then get online and get designing!

5- Photo gifts

Mugs, cushions, Magnets, Keyrings, t-shirts, notepads - there are so many options out there that there is no point in me listing them all! There’s only so much room on the walls for frames, so once they’re full you can start filling your fridge and kitchen cupboards instead!

6- Wall art

It’s not just frames, there are so many other options to play with! I offer canvases and wooden blocks in my galleries, but there’s also printing on metal, framed canvases, fabric wall hangings… With interesting and unusual sessions, why not create an unusual product?

7- Christmas decorations

Every year we get all our special seasonal decorations out to create that festive atmosphere in our homes. Why not turn some of your images into baubles, snow globes or Christmas themed wall hangings that you just get out once a year? Things we see every day start to lose impact, by bringing these images out just once a year you’ll get to relive them and enjoy those memories all over again!

8- Announcement

Do you have a special something coming up? Proposal? New baby? Moving house? Gender reveal? You could use your mini session to announce it, and use the images to spread the word! By special request, you can even do proposals and gender reveals as a surprise part of the session, why not!? The images can then be printed on cards or added to e-cards to send around to all your loved ones, or just put up on your wall to remember that special day. All digital images come with a personal license for printing and sharing, so you can use it on social media and print it however you like!

So there you go! I hope that’s got the creative juices flowing. Have I missed anything out? Any other ideas for using your photos? Let me know in the comments!

Hey! I’m Elise

I run mini sessions once a year, in Berkshire and Wiltshire. If you want to guarantee your place, sign up for my mailing list below!