Photo Books: They Aren’t Just for Special Occasions
Making photo books is a fun way to share the photos from our recent vacation or pictures from the highlights of the past year. But sometimes there are so many photos we want to include that we get overwhelmed or we just completely overthink the process.
I recently went through that while making a photo book from my daughter as a graduation gift. I spent countless hours looking at photos and scanning memorabilia to make sure I had all of the “just right” pictures. Then I spent countless hours creating the book, editing it, adding to it, editing it again, and finally forcing myself to push the order button. It was a labor of love but it was exhausting.
What I would like you to consider is that a photo book doesn’t have to commemorate a momentous occasion or reflection on a life well-lived, even though those are fabulous ones to make. I would like to propose photos books that capture something silly or a theme you’ve noticed in your photos can be just as meaningful as a wedding album or a year in review.
Photo Books Can Be Simple
Case in point: My family goes to the beach every year. We’ve been doing it since I was 5 and I’m a little older than that now. My children have gone almost every summer of their lives and have great memories of being on the beach with their cousins.
One of their favorite beach activities is digging holes – big ones, small ones, ones that fill with water. They like to sit in the holes, play in the holes, get buried in the holes, look for sharks’ teeth in the holes. It is definitely a recurring theme of our recurring family vacation.
As we looked at photos of my daughter during her graduation celebration, I made the offhand comment that I enjoyed looking at the years and years of beach photos and I could make a photo book of just the holes. We all got a good laugh about that.
When the craziness of graduation passed and my brain could think again, I decided I was going to do just that, make a photo book with just pictures of the beach holes that we have played in for the last couple of decades.
First I looked through my years of beach photos and found as many “hole” pictures as I could. One of the benefits of having all your photos digitized and labeled is being able to do this quickly and easily. Then I made copies of them in a single folder on my computer with plans to delete all the copies after the project is complete.
For this project, I chose to use Mixbook for my photo book company. Using their photo book creation tool, in about two hours I made a very simple book that highlighted “hole” photos from 1984 when my sister was little up until 2017 when my children were very grown teenagers. I used a very simple template with white pages and I added the bare minimum of text (basically just the dates). The result is not only a look back at all of the holes we’ve dug but also a chronicle of the growth of all the kids over the years.
I haven’t told anyone that I’ve made this book yet. By the time this post is published, I will have debuted it at our beach vacation. I can’t wait to see everyone’s reaction. That’s part of the fun of making photo books.
Now some of our “kids” are legally adults and some of our adults still act like kids, so I know when we return to the beach this year, there will be some major holes dug and fun will be had by all. And we can all enjoy looking at our own history of digging holes.
What is the least “momentous” photo book you’ve ever made?
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Great Resources for Creating Photo Books
Will Your Family Memories Survive a Zombie Apocalypse?
How to Create a Year in Review Photo Book
Giving 35mm Slides New Life: Creating Photo Books and Slideshows from 35mm Slides
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Connect with Good Life Photo Solutions
Instagram • Good Life Photo Solutions
Facebook • Good Life Photo Solutions
Pinterest • Good Life Photo Solutions
Sign up for our newsletter
Email us. I’d love your feedback and questions! [email protected]
Want to Know More?
If you want to work with a photo organizer near you to help you organize and preserve your photos, contact us or visit The Photo Managers to find one in your area.
*This post may contain affiliate links. This means if you purchase from a link, I may receive a small commission at no additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting my small business. See my disclosure policy for full details.
I just love this! How fun! One of the “downsides” of the digital era for me is the loss of having printed photos. We did make books of many of our vacations, and we look at them often. I wish we had made more. Maybe I’ll take this on as a little project to make a few with fun themes like beach holes! Great idea:)
I think people of our generation (ahem!) appreciate a printed photo (a print or in a book) more than our kids since our photo collections straddle the print and digital age. It’s never too late to print a print or make a book!
Oh, I love this idea! I’m in the process of organizing my photos (very slowly I might add) so I’ll have to be alert to possible themes.
Slow and steady, Janet! You’ll get there. You’ll be surprised all the “small” themes you find.
I love this idea. I just recently bought a small photo album from the dollar store and filled it with pictures of my family from early days and gave it to my dad for Father’s Day. It was a huge hit at our family gathering.
It always makes my heart glad to hear of families gathering photos. Such a great bonding experience!
When my son was born I started making “family yearbooks” through Shutterfly. My son is 6 now and loves looking at them. He calls them “the Ben books” because really they’re all about him! You’ve got me thinking that maybe I should create one with just me and my husband. 😉
That’s so sweet. I need to do a better job with family yearbooks. I have done a few and we all love them.
What a beautiful idea! And I’m guessing that your family just LOVED the book of holes. I’ve made all types of photo books over the years…initially the non-digital ones, and later the digital type. I’m not sure what the least momentous book was, but one comes to mind. For years, my husband’s mother sent an old photo and very short story (as in a few sentences short) to our daughters on their birthdays. I think we collected 10 or 12 in all. My intent was to make a book for them with these. However, time passed and I never did. The stories were mostly about my husband (their Daddy) growing up. Fast forward many years later after my mother-in-law had passed away, and I came across this collection. I decided to make a photo/story book as a gift for my husband’s birthday. He loved it! And the book is available to share with our daughters too.
What a treasure no matter when received!
This is awesome! I was actually working on a book last night of our beach vacations and the same thought came to me about our love of ice cream at the beach! Every year, year after year, there is ice cream and plenty of it!!! Thanks so much for sharing!
[…] Photo Books: They Aren’t Just for Special Occasions – Yes, I actually did make a photo book about holes. […]
[…] mentioned before on this blog that my family goes to the beach every summer and has done so almost every year since I was 5. It’s a special tradition for us, […]
[…] Your photo book doesn’t have to be a large, complicated project. Trust me. Once I made a photo book about holes. Really, I did! You can read about it here. […]
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