Capturing Everyday Magic: Alexandra Nolan on Family Photos and Digital Nostalgia

Unlock the secrets of capturing everyday magic with lifestyle expert and entrepreneur Alexandra Nolan on this episode of the Dead Pixels Society podcast. Nolan takes us through her transformative journey from being an original blogger to a lifestyle expert, revealing how she swapped professional-grade cameras for the convenience and versatility of smartphone photography. Supported by insights from a Harris Poll study commissioned by Amazon Photos, we dive into the emotional connections people have with their photos, and the joy and nostalgia that accompany revisiting captured memories.

Explore the fascinating evolution of family photos and the role of technology in preserving cherished moments. She discusses how today's media-savvy children will experience nostalgia in new ways, bolstered by digital storage solutions like Amazon Photos that simplify curating and sharing family treasures. Nolan shares her perspective on the changing significance of printed photos and how young parents today enjoy the option to print as a meaningful choice rather than a necessity, balancing digital convenience with the timeless appeal of physical keepsakes.

Finally, Nolan, who is the author of "The Unconventional Entrepreneur," delves into her experiences as a serial entrepreneur, highlighting the symbiotic relationship between photography, graphic design, and business ventures. She shares her perspective on how modern printed photos have become treasured gifts, and how the industry can spark a resurgence in photo printing through high-quality, personalized products.

Energize your sales with Shareme.chat, the proven texting platform. 

ShareMe.Chat 
ShareMe.Chat platform uses chat-to-text on your website to keep your customers connected and buying!

Mediaclip
Mediaclip strives to continuously enhance the user experience while dramatically increasing revenue.

Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!
Start for FREE

Independent Photo Imagers
IPI is a member + trade association and a cooperative buying group in the photo + print industry.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Chapters

• 0:02 Importance of Photos in Everyday Life
• 11:13 Evolution of Family Photos and Technology
• 16:17 Reviving Traditional Photo Printing Industry
• 25:10 Digital and Physical Photo Memories
• 29:56 Consumer Perspectives on Photography Trends"

Transcript

Erin Manning: 0:02

Welcome to the Dead Pixel Society podcast, the photo imaging industry's leading news source. Here's your host, Gary Pegeau.

Gary Pageau: 0:18

Hello again and welcome to the Dead Pixels Society podcast. I'm your Gary Pageau, , and today we're joined by Alexandra Nolan, who's a lifestyle expert and entrepreneur. Hi Alexandra, how are you today?

Alexandra Nolan: 0:31

I'm doing great, Gary. Thank you for having me.

Gary Pageau: 0:33

What's the summer been like down in Memphis, Tennessee. This year?

Alexandra Nolan: 0:37

Really hot.

Gary Pageau: 0:39

Like everywhere, right.

Alexandra Nolan: 0:40

Yes, I swear. The year prior I was like, oh, this is the hottest. But now this year I like, oh, this is the hottest. But now this year I feel like this is the hottest. It just gets hotter and hotter and the humidity.

Gary Pageau: 0:49

We get humidity up here in Michigan. I don't know when it's like in Tennessee, but it's same it's yeah, so anyway, you're here actually to talk about cameras, consumer photography, and like the camera roll being the real-time scrapbook of people's lives. How did you get interested in that aspect of photography?

Alexandra Nolan: 1:11

Well, my journey in photography kind of goes back and it's a very unconventional journey. So I started doing, I jumped on ship. I'm an OG blogger, I like to say Back in 2012, when the whole blogging thing popped up, I was one of the first to jump on, and back then, we used to Blogspot.

Gary Pageau: 1:29

Was it a blogspot?

Alexandra Nolan: 1:31

I wasn't that Well actually. Well, no bloggercom came after that. So I was blogger. It doesn't exist anymore, but yeah, so I jumped on and back then it was really important that your photos you know Instagram, all the socials were like the photos have to be perfect, they need to be professional grade. So we all were buying.

Alexandra Nolan: 1:55

I had the Nikon top camera, never had taken a photography course in my life, but thanks to Google, I learned a little bit and, yeah, that's how I got started. I started doing my own photos, teaching my boyfriend at the time, and later husband, how to do photos. I was like you've got to take these photos for me, and so it's kind of like when all of these people just kind of started becoming amateur photographers because they were trying to mold themselves for the upcoming wave of social media and the new blogging boom.

Gary Pageau: 2:20

Okay, now you said you actually invested in a separate camera. You weren't doing. You know camera phones hadn't quite taken over that, are you still?

Alexandra Nolan: 2:31

a camera buff, or are you all smartphone these days? I feel like I'm going to get in trouble for saying this, because I do have some photographer friends, but I am 100% smartphone these days.

Gary Pageau: 2:39

It is fine, that is fine.

Alexandra Nolan: 2:42

There was a moment in time where I wouldn't admit that out loud because my photographer friends would be so upset with me. But no I.

Alexandra Nolan: 2:48

I learned all the ins and outs, the f stops, all the things you have to know about photography, and then, uh, technology in our pockets just became so much I don't want to say better, because you still get a lot of, uh, great quality and just unique, creative things through an actual camera. But people were able to take high quality photos with their phone and so I kind of made the swap, mainly because it's easier for me to put a phone on a tripod and take a photo than to try to put a big camera. And you know, you've got the front facing camera with the phone, I can see myself and all of those things.

Gary Pageau: 3:23

Oh, that's exactly right. And I mean, you know, trust me, the industry would much rather have everyone using a smartphone than no camera at all. I mean, that's really what it comes down to. I mean, you know traditional cameras are great, digital cameras are great and there's, you know, action cams and drones. I mean you can have 17 cameras and do to do all the things right, but you know they cameras and do it to do all the things right, but you know they don't do any good if they're not in your pocket ready to use when you need to use it. So don't feel ashamed, just be glad you're using it. So one of the reasons why you're here is you're here to share the results of this Harris Poll study that Amazon had commissioned Amazon Photos, I should say has commissioned to kind of talk about the importance of photos in people's lives and the feelings they have with that. So I'm very interested in you sharing those results.

Alexandra Nolan: 4:16

Yes, absolutely. So I was really shocked by some of the data points with it. It all made sense, but it just kind of resonated with what I already felt inside. I just didn't realize everyone else was feeling the same. So just some of the top things and this may be pretty obvious, but the top emotion that Americans feel when they are scrolling through their camera roll, feel when they are scrolling through their camera roll.

Alexandra Nolan: 4:43

So you know, this is obviously photos, probably more iPhone photos or just cell phone photos. I guess, if we call it so, they feel happiness. 60% of the respondents said that they felt happiness when scrolling through their camera roll. And then happiness was followed, by which this one is a big one for me and and one that I um immediately felt in a very strong way, actually, after downloading this app that I'm obsessed with.

Alexandra Nolan: 5:10

I'll tell you about later um, the Amazon photos app, um, I felt. The next one is nostalgia 46%, that was big for me, so happiness. You know, you take photos in the moment and you go through your photos from the week or the party the night before and you feel happy, enjoying. But then when you are able to search back years prior and just maybe some of the forgotten memories, the very small minute moments that you just kind of you were like let me take a shot of that.

Alexandra Nolan: 5:38

And you find that photo and it takes you back to that moment and that little sliver of time that may not even have been a pivotal moment in your life, that feeling of nostalgia just overwhelms. And so that is the second feeling behind happiness that people feel when they're going through their camera roll. Then you've got joyfulness, amusement, gratefulness. I mean even awe is one of them 16% feel awe. So there's all of these positive emotions that the study found that people experience.

Gary Pageau: 6:10

You know it's interesting, you said because there's a couple of points I mean notes on there on that One was you know there's a lot of, I wouldn't say, negativity but criticism kind of. You know taking a lot of pictures and doing all these kinds of things and you know obviously there's a time and a place that you know you don't want to be taking up people's time in a, in a restaurant, taking, you know, pictures of your food and posing for selfies and delaying everyone and you know that sort of thing. I know everyone can agree that was obnoxious. But I think what kind of gets overlooked is you don't know the value of a picture when you take it. It's only when you go back and look forth you realize that was the last picture of me and bob together before you know bob had a, you know terrible motorcycle accident or or something right. So you don't in context, you don't always know. So I I liked what you said about, you know, maybe not nostalgia but remembrance or reinforcement of positive feelings yeah, you really like I'm, I'm.

Alexandra Nolan: 7:07

This doesn't happen to me. Often, as you're saying this, the feeling of getting teary-eyed is happening because you know you say that you never really know.

Alexandra Nolan: 7:16

Growing up, my mom was just the photo queen and we were always like, oh stop, oh my God another like, like years of it, and this will mark the 10th anniversary this December 14th, that my brother passed away in a terrible car accident and one of the things we said I remember less than 24 hours we're all sitting around still and just shock, horror and not knowing the feelings. My dad looked over and he's a pretty quiet guy and he's the one that hated the photos the most and he just looked at her and hadn't said anything all night and he said you know, honey, I am just so thankful for all those times you made us stand in photos.

Alexandra Nolan: 7:55

And we and then then my sister's like let's go grab the photo books. And we sat there all night and we went through them and it's just, you're right, they're just so precious and even though they exist in our phone, you know, I I like a good old photo book that I can look at.

Alexandra Nolan: 8:09

I feel like I can find them. I can't find the photo albums anymore to put my photos in. Yes, photos are just. They're so precious and those little moments you don't think about can mean a lifetime of happiness that you you may not get to experience with someone.

Gary Pageau: 8:23

So because it Cause it's. It's an interesting thing we have where there's been some research done on, like when photos have their most value, right. So, for example, commercial photos, like pictures you take at, you know, advertising or social media or whatever you know they're valuable, right, when you take them and they kind of decrease over time because things get out of fashion, right, but memory photos, nostalgia, memories, your, your pictures of your kids, you know you've, and those actually gain value over time, right, because it's more and more important, because you can't go back and recapture your, your child's first steps or those things and you're glad. You're glad you have them more and more as you go. So talk a little bit then about you know your role as the, as the person that they've asked to talk about this study. You know what drew you to it.

Alexandra Nolan: 9:39

Well, I'll tell you, first of all, my whole entire life with being a mother and any parent can really relate to this. I mean photos, they're just a given, especially when you have a camera phone. So there's that. But then also, my, my full time job is is photos. I'm creating photos, creating videos, capturing moments, being able to evoke feelings and memories out of those special moments. So, from someone who has just gone from being a child with a mother that just wouldn't put the camera down to then going being a mother herself that won't put the camera down, and now also basically photos being my job, I feel like it kind of it consumes pretty much every waking moment that I am not asleep.

Gary Pageau: 10:24

So what do you say to people who say things like you know, just put that away. You know, put that thing down. I don't. You know, stop taking pictures. I see it around in social media myself to sort of, you know, live in the moment, don't take any pictures. What's your response to that?

Alexandra Nolan: 10:41

My husband says it all the time, so I have a perfect response for it. I told him. I said you'll be happy in a year's time when I make you that I make him annual little slideshows, just random ones, you know, the iPhone will put them together little shows of what you've done for 2022 or whatever, and so I make them and send them to him and he's always like oh my gosh, you know I forgot about that.

Alexandra Nolan: 11:03

I'm like you'll be happy, you'll be happy when I took that and I also say, come on, it only takes like a half a second. Just smile and let me get the photo.

Gary Pageau: 11:13

Because I think that is one of the things when you, when you look at, like, what happens in families these days, right, you know, kids today are, you know, much more media literate. I don't know how old your children are, but mine are older, but one was creating content herself, right? So I mean it's just one of those things where it's like you know it's, I think it's a different, almost a generational difference, where I don't think that nostalgia piece is going to mean as much to them until much later.

Alexandra Nolan: 11:39

Yeah, absolutely. I totally agree with that. I mean, if you think about it, even though the media is much different now, or the devices that we have are much different now than what they were when we were kids I mean, my kids are kids nowadays, are like barely in the middle school with phones, you know, it still goes back to the in the moment. When you're a child, you just kind of live in the moment and take things day by day, and photos are taken and you're kind of like, whatever they get your parents back in the day, put them in a photo album. They end up minor, you know, ended up moving with me to college and then to my first house and an attic, and then, when I became a mom, I pulled them all down and I the nostalgia.

Alexandra Nolan: 12:19

Nostalgia comes, and appreciation for it comes so much later. And with that being said, though, you know, talking about how technology was, I don't want to say it was non-existent, it just was nowhere where it is today. Nowadays, though, you know, the children, not only will they appreciate it later, they'll have it, they'll have access to it in much quicker, easier ways. They won't have to go up to their attic to, you know, get the access or whatever, and so cause it'll be in a phone. I mean, there's certain apps that can save photos and basically categorize your photo. Well, for one I mentioned it earlier Amazon photos.

Alexandra Nolan: 12:55

You know, it's basically the photo album of the, the actual, tangible photo album, but now your phone. So for these, for these children, I can imagine my kids when they get older. You know, I have all the photos of them through my amazon photos I can. I sort it by each child, like you know, all three of my kids sort it by year, um, so we know what, how old they are.

Alexandra Nolan: 13:18

and then I plan on I already the Amazon photos will allow you to share your photo albums with family, so of course the grandparents have them. But later in life it's almost like I'm creating a lifelong scrapbook of my kids because later in life I'll be able to, they'll be able to have access, I can give them access to that and they can see all of their memories from the beginning and used to. When Facebook first came out, you know, I was like, oh, this will be it, I'll do my Facebook albums, but it's just never really. You know, you just never know.

Gary Pageau: 13:49

Yeah, well, that's the thing with that is, I think you know you have things you want to share. You may not need to share it with you know Mark Zuckerberg and his people right.

Gary Pageau: 13:57

In terms of it. Yeah, in terms of it, yeah, I mean it is, there's a very, you know, public, private sort of component on that where, yeah, you want to share but you want to be able to control the sharing and you want to make sure that you know people who are sharing or can't reshare and do things like that. Now, one thing you mentioned that was, I think, applicable is you know, the Amazon photo and other apps like that you know they do are starting to add some AI and intelligence on there to help you with the sorting.

Alexandra Nolan: 14:24

Yes, I love it.

Alexandra Nolan: 14:25

So not only you know safety, security, that's why, I started taking all of my little younger me photo albums when I first had my boys thinking, oh, this will be their scrapbooks. Of course I started. You know any of this can be hacked and you don't want pre-pos. You know having access to that. So I started moving all mine over to Amazon Photos and for the security purpose. But also I started moving my cloud photos from my phone into Amazon Photos because, yes, amazon Photos can sort and I know the iPhone sorts by face and year, but you can type in keywords and it will pull these photos up. So to me, the AI in it is just incredible.

Alexandra Nolan: 15:09

And it's crazy to me how it can it knows my, my children. My oldest is nine and my youngest is six. I have an eight year old in between it's. It's crazy to me how it even recognizes their faces at different you know and can separate them out as well, because both my nine-year-old and my six-year-old look very similar when they were much younger. But it knows and it sorts them.

Gary Pageau: 15:32

Wow. So let's talk about the output side, Because you mentioned that you have, you know you do some printing, I mean back in the day you know you're going to do the old man thing.

Gary Pageau: 15:48

Back in the day. You're going to do the old man thing. Back in the day you had to print to see everything, right? What do you think the role of print is to today's young parents? Right, I mean, you've got three kids under the age of 10. That used to be the sweet spot demographic for the print market, right? Because mom had to have all those prints and give extra prints to grandma and all the other stuff. So what do you think the role is for print in a world where print is more of an option and a choice as opposed to a requirement?

Alexandra Nolan: 16:12

You know it's really crazy because back in the day you just printed your photos. That's just what you did, you know. And so nowadays I feel like the role of print has become more creative to create objects that you can cherish and memorable objects. So, for example, for my mother this year, for last year, for Christmas, I had one of our family photos that we took on the iPhone printed on a big canvas and so that she could hang it in her home For my grandmother.

Alexandra Nolan: 16:44

She drinks coffee, so I had photos family photos of us printed on the coffee mug.

Alexandra Nolan: 16:52

And these are just things that you know, people I feel like cherish so much more because of the lack of photos being printed. They're not just laying around everywhere, so now when you get something with a photo on it, it just means so much more. I mean here I can show you an example. I mean I've got a mouse pad with my kid's picture on it so anytime I sit down for work I can look at my babies and it's just, it's much more special. I feel like to print photos, as it was back in the day.

Gary Pageau: 17:21

So what would you recommend for the print side of the industry? I like my audience to to connect more with people, to be able to encourage people to print more. Right, I mean, it's always the industry. Research has always shown. You know people intend to print more than they do and, for whatever reason, they don't do it. Now you know people intend to print more than they do and for whatever reason they don't do it. Now you know you being the sweet spot demographic for our, that industry. What could they do better to encourage you to print more?

Alexandra Nolan: 17:54

You know, the one thing that has encouraged me to print more is basically creating these personalized gifts.

Alexandra Nolan: 18:02

I mean, when you think about, when you think about gift giving, you know, especially if you're going to, if you're going to market to an industry to try to get people to print more, how can you make personalized, high quality products that people are going to want? You know, back in the day, I feel like you could get something printed on a coffee mug and it'd be all pixelated and the mug would just be a basic white mug. Like how can you come up with something that's really cool? For instance, I saw recently someone had a had printed a whole entire family portrait on a blanket on a fleece blanket, which was really nice. Blanket on a fleece blanket, which was really nice. And then one that was even cooler is someone had printed there you can put your child's head on like superheroes and put them on a blanket and it's just. These are things that kids want, these are things that people want. So to encourage more print in anything I know we're talking about tangible goods but really to market, you know, for gift giving.

Gary Pageau: 18:59

So but I guess, like my question is because it in my thinking it's more of an awareness issue like you just talked about two products that if we went down the street and talked to people and said, hey, did you know this could happen, you can do this, um, and it's just right in your phone. You can select any one of half a dozen print sites, including amazon photos, to to do, to make these things, and it's only a button or click to a wave. That's where I think the industry is kind of hung up on. It's all about, you know, how do we create awareness? And I mean, you know you're in the influencer industry.

Gary Pageau: 19:34

Obviously, that's tremendous being an influencer, but also, is it really as effective a thing to get people to print as much? That's where I think some of the disconnect happens because, just to be honest, a lot of the photo sites don't use influencers, right, they don't, they just go through hey, here's 20 percent off. Well, if I'm not even aware of how good this product is, why do I want 20 percent of office, something I'm not even aware of?

Alexandra Nolan: 20:00

Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. Awareness, I think sometimes I you know, when you're in a box and I've been doing something for so long that you just think everybody gets it because I see all the products. But, yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, I remember basically doing a campaign where you can print, basically create your own family, not photo albums, but stories, family stories and stuff like that, and I'd seen a lot of influencers promoting it, and so they do. I think a lot of companies are starting to reach out into the influencer space or meeting the consumers where they are on social platforms, even if it isn't an influencer, running ads through social platforms as well to create awareness. But yes, I think the only way you're going to get people to understand that you know this is even an option or available is, you know, to let them know, to make them aware of it.

Gary Pageau: 20:48

And the other thing is is because, like, like you said, they may have seen a photo mug from 10 years ago or eight, or the quality is so much better now and the choice of different types of mugs and handles and sizes, and you can get a 10 ounce and a 12 ounce and a 16 ounce and you can get a travel mug and you can all these things you can make, which, I think again, I think there's an awareness gap there. It's frustrating for, I think, for a lot of people in the industry because, like you said, they focus solely on gifts, because in our industry the fourth quarter is the biggest mark, because it's all gifts, gifts, gifts. But it really should just be sort of more of an everyday thing.

Alexandra Nolan: 21:24

Right, yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, I wish you know traditional printing of photos was. I almost feel like sometimes when you move away from something though, um, when things were, and when you're wanting that nostalgia of the way things used to be, it just all of a sudden starts to flip that way.

Alexandra Nolan: 21:42

So, for example, I didn't really care much about photo albums for the longest time and now that, like I've, I think the last photo album that I have was probably from like 1998 or something like that, like the actual. I was in a store the other day like looking for the photo albums, trying to get back to that old, traditional way. So I almost feel like the way it happens with a lot of things. It's not just photos when you move away from something and you get so far away from it.

Alexandra Nolan: 22:13

you just want to feel that home and you just want to feel that the way things use. That's the nostalgia part of it. So I feel like, personally as someone and they're not even marketing I think you could market photo albums again and printing again and people would start getting back on it. I can think of an ad in my head being like remember the good old days you know, in the 90s, around the Christmas tree with your photo albums out and sharing family memories.

Alexandra Nolan: 22:39

Make your. You know, go online and make yourself a. You print your photos up and make yourself a coffee book photo album, just like mom and dad used to have you know.

Gary Pageau: 22:47

But you know it's interesting, as people have tried different styles of that over the years and that really is kind of what the traditional photo industry was built on right, that was Kodak's whole message. Was you know this, the weepy Paul Anka song where people, would you know, see the wedding pictures and they'd cry and then they'd want to get reprints and you know the heart tugging thing and it's almost like people don't want to do that because they're almost too cynical now in terms of marketing. You know, we don't want to market like that, because my grandpa did that. What do you think about that? Because I think we're touching on actually a sort of a universal, timeless sort of thing as opposed to a trendy thing.

Alexandra Nolan: 23:28

Yeah, no, I think in just marketing in general, going back to the basics, I think we have moved so far from traditional marketing which I get it that we do want to evolve in our marketing strategies, but I think that there's so much noise I mean there's so much noise to the consumer, do this, do that, whether your phone, know your phone, your social, everywhere, just noise everywhere that sometimes we do just want the traditional peaceful, quiet, good old days come back and all these videos were going viral and photos 90 people dressing up in 90s clothing and doing fashion shoots and stuff like that the photos were viral because people want that you know people do want you know a piece of it, especially in a world that's wild like it is today yeah, it's a piece of calm and good old days.

Gary Pageau: 24:29

Grandma's cookies, you know it does make me wonder if the people in you know, let's say 20 44 are going to look back at 2024 and go. Those are the good old days, I know.

Alexandra Nolan: 24:41

You know that's scary, it does make me kind of wonder, you know. I'm glad my good old days were like early 90s. There you go.

Gary Pageau: 24:49

There you go, so you touched on some of the things about marketing. You also do a lot with entrepreneurship, so you touched on some of the things about marketing.

Alexandra Nolan: 25:00

You also do a lot with our entrepreneurship. Can you talk a little bit about your work there? But I have launched and sold. I feel like I'm a serial entrepreneur. I've launched and sold businesses. I've recently launched a business in the hospitality industry and, yeah, it's kind of my passion and this has also helped me with getting into, I guess, photos, graphic design, all of that Because, as an entrepreneur, you want to do everything on your own. Photos, graphic design, all of that because, as an entrepreneur, you want to do everything on your own.

Alexandra Nolan: 25:33

So you know, as it started with photos for Instagram and all of that, now that I've launched other, I had a boutique at one point and makeup line, all of that, you know, taking the photos, extracting certain images out of them, creating graphic design with them. It's really kind of followed me all the way through, yeah because it's it's.

Gary Pageau: 25:55

It's kind of hard to escape photography and imaging if you're in marketing and entrepreneurship.

Alexandra Nolan: 26:02

It's sort of intertwined within it's intertwined, yeah, and entrepreneurship, branding, marketing they all go together and you just cannot do that without some sort of visual that is enticing and can capture the consumer's eye.

Gary Pageau: 26:15

Let's talk a little before we kind of bring this real close. Talk a little bit about your own. You know you've got three kids who are awesome. You mentioned earlier, you know, passing things on to them. Do you think that's going to be in a digital form or in a physical form, like photo books?

Alexandra Nolan: 26:31

No, I would love for it to be in a physical form, but I just know the way my children operate. I mean they are not the first generation, but close to the first generation that has not been on this earth without the digital world. I mean I didn't have a computer in my home when I was a kid. That my kids are like what you. You didn't have a computer, so I would love to both. I mean me being a mother. I'd like to have something tangible that I can print. Maybe it won't go into just a traditional photo album. I've actually started creating some scrapbooks.

Alexandra Nolan: 27:05

I've been printing photos and creating little scrapbooks.

Alexandra Nolan: 27:09

They don't care about them right now and my husband's, like their boys, are not going to care. I'm like I promise if they don't, their wives will one day. But no, I think that having it digitally is is just so super important, not only because it's there and it's safe and it's you know they can access it at any time, but it's just the volume, the volume of photos. I mean. It's just you can't print 5,000 photos and I, as a mother, can't decide which one to delete yes, you can.

Gary Pageau: 27:38

I can purchase some people listen. If you have a 5,000 print order, I've got some people will be happy to handle that for you you're right, you can't.

Alexandra Nolan: 27:47

I'm the mom though that has like five of the same, but the heads just turn slightly a little bit and that's where the digital technology comes in, because it's going to pick.

Gary Pageau: 27:56

Of those five photos, it's going to pick the one that's the best yeah, well, that's great I mean that's.

Alexandra Nolan: 28:02

That's incredible. I love that, because I can't make the decision. I almost feel guilty for deleting any photo with my child's face in it. So and then today you know what's really cool? I didn't even mention we have the Amazon shows. Do you know what those are?

Alexandra Nolan: 28:15

They have the screens we have the echoes, but we have the shows and one of the cool things that I've started doing sink. So when my kids go to brush their teeth in the morning, sometimes I'll randomly take goofy photos of them throughout the week or whatever, and I will just put them up there and all of a sudden they're brushing their teeth and they just have these weird faces and it's sliding through and they think it's funny and it just really brings more joy and happiness to the mornings which are stressful around our house and same for my husband just more loving photos and stuff like that. So you know, speaking of gifting your children, things in the future you can actually gift your family outside of gifts of coffee, mugs and tangible things. It's just a simple have a slideshow made for them and it takes two seconds. Pick some photos show made for them and it takes two seconds. Pick some photos, hit, enter on the app and it just sends it to your show devices. Nice.

Gary Pageau: 29:17

Awesome. So, alexandra, it's been great talking to you. Where can people go to get more information about the things you do and the other things you mentioned?

Alexandra Nolan: 29:27

Okay, well, you can go to citysheeplivingcom. That is my blog and all things lifestyle, parenting and mom or Instagram at alexandranicole. And I know I've mentioned my favorite app for photos out there. That's the Amazon photo app. You can download the Amazon photo app through the app store, but if you're a prime member, which I feel like most of us are, you can get unlimited storage and get the photo app that way as well.

Gary Pageau: 29:56

Awesome. Well, thank you very much. It's been great to me. I had fun talking. I always like to talk to like the key consumer, which is you, and find out really what you're thinking about photography, because it does change and you know people have been in the industry, has been around a long time, so people can tend to be set in their ways. So I'm glad to have you share your ideas and your insights.

Erin Manning: 30:17

Well, thank you for having me. Thank you for listening to the Dead Pixel Society podcast. Read more great stories and sign up for the newsletter at wwwthedeadpixelssocietycom.