Photographs are an integral part of life. Thanks to photography, people can document every aspect of their life. These days, it is common to have friends who post photos of their wedding, vacation, new children, etc. on a blog or photo sharing website. Photography has certainly embraced the digital age. While digital photography has some major advantages over conventional photography, the old median should not be forgotten. And those who are not familiar with it should check out the new median of printing pictures on canvas.

The reason that the digital photography median is so popular is because most everyone has access to a digital camera in some form or other. Practically everyone has a cell phone and practically every cell phone sold today also has a digital camera embedded in it. And stand alone digital cameras and their necessary accessories like memory cards are dropping in price every single day. Digital photographs are also extremely easy to share with anyone, anywhere in the world. You do not have to wait for the photographs to be processed. Since they are digital, they are available instantly. Some cameras even have a screen so the photos can be viewed right after they are shot. Digital photographs can be posted to websites, sent through e-mails, or sent directly to another person through a chat application such as iChat.

Although digital photographs are extremely convenient in many senses, there is still something to be said about a photograph that is printed on paper, and can be held, placed in an album, or put in a frame. Most people would rather leave out bound photo albums on the coffee table in the living room for guests to peruse than leave out their computer and have a guest searching their computer for image files. Printed photographs are also much more appropriate to give as gifts. Although e-mailing somebody a photograph is a thoughtful gesture, I don't think anyone would consider it to be a gift. A new and exciting median that is especially appropriate for gift giving is printing pictures on canvas. It is now possible to take almost any digital photograph and place it on the same material that one might find an elegant oil painting painted on. All printing pictures on canvas are done by hand. That is, all the sealing and stretching is done by hand.

Besides being a neat and unique gift, photographs on this median can last as long as one hundred years when kept in museum conditions. That is much longer than any print photograph will last. Even digital files can become corrupted. And hard drives can break and burn out. Most computers can barely last a couple of years, let alone one hundred years!

To have a picture converted into this median can be done for as little as twenty-five dollars for an eight-inch by ten-inch picture. A twenty-inch by thirty-four inch picture cost approximately one hundred dollars. That's only one dollar per year for a picture that will last a century.