Tea time is always best served with a photo album.

The filter-free pictures may cause embarrassment, but it's something moms will never part with.

The Instagram youth are slowly catching on and realising the wisdom of having their pictures printed.

Unlike the cyber world, it can never be wiped clean - unless it finds itself in a furnace.

Deon Brits, the general manager for photo imaging at Fujifilm, says they realised consumers enjoy holding a printed photograph and brought back their popular Instax camera a few years ago.

People become bored almost instantly when anybody shows them images on a mobile or laptop," he says, adding people connect with the moment, and experience various emotions when holding printed photos.

He says prints will last a lifetime in an album, a wall frame, a purse or locker chains.

"Mobiles and laptops get lost, stolen and hard drives crash. Most of the time one cannot find the image when wanting to show someone at that given time; with prints they are always available to show."

The company, which has just launched its latest Instax camera, is also busy with an initiative called PrintLife. The project is part of the international drive to inspire consumers to print their images which will last a lifetime.

"We will be printing each photo and it will be displayed at the exhibition in Sandton City for a week during the month of June 2019. Part of the exhibition will consist of Instax and digital photography activations."

Brits says the world was excited when the Polaroid from the early 1980s was born, giving instant gratification by printing out images immediately. Next came Fuji's version Mini 10 Instax camera launched in Japan in 1998.

They have now officially teamed up with singer Taylor Swift for a limited edition Instax Square SQ6.