We got another of Maggie’s photo books in the mail recently and on Saturday morning, while Audrey took her nap, Barry and I sat with her and thumbed through the pages. Since I’m roughly a year behind it was the book that documented her 2nd birthday to just before her 3rd. Maggie has an impeccable memory and many of the pictures were met with great giggles and elaboration. She especially loved hearing Barry and I tell additional details about things that we noticed and remembered. The books that I make for my girls (currently working on Audrey’s and Maggie’s latest) are huge and some would probably think over the top. And they might just be…
My mom did a remarkable job with documenting my childhood and my brothers and I each have an album from each year, they have now been consolidated and transferred out of those old albums, but I’ve always loved looking at them, even as a child. I even found joy looking at my brothers’ books. To think what an effort my mom must of made to make sure that each of us had copies of group shots and family outings, impresses me and inspires me to keep plowing through my books.
I sometimes daydream about the idea of ‘becoming’ a lifestyle photographer. I’d love to go into people’s homes and become a fly on the wall and take pictures of their lives….the day to day and nitty gritty of it all. Or just take pictures of a family spending time together – not the posed shots where every body is wearing the same color and holding their guts in, but a family working together in the garden, playing a board game, etc. Capturing the moments that often get lost.
And maybe someday I’ll pursue that avenue of creativity and I really think I’d be doing some families a favor. I don’t mean to sound all high-and-mighty, but I get so sad when I see friends/random people only take horrible, blurry photos of their children with their phones. Of course not everybody wants to learn how to used a big camera, but there are a fair amount of cameras out there that are small and capable of taking pictures of higher quality than any cell phone to date. Since getting my own iPhone this year, I’ve noticed that I tend to use it way more than my ‘big’ camera, and I’m trying to make a point to again pick up my ‘big camera’ to document some things.
After looking though the photo books, I’m critical of my own photography, but Maggie just recognizes a book full of faces and places she loves.
Good for you! My mom didn’t put together a photo book for me (the second child) until I was pregnant with Juniper. So…it took her 33 years. I hope to do a bit better with my girls. I keep telling myself, “I have the blog.” But I’ve been absent from the blog lately while I update a “quote book” and started a “sisters” book. I intended to do the yearly books for each, but haven’t. I’ve done a book of family (since they live so far away), and I have some books in mind (after the sisters book, a book doing fun stuff with parents, etc.). Which company do you use? And do you include a lot of writing: stories, quotes, etc? Super curious.
I now have quite a few ideas for books I’d also like to do (sisters, wedding album, family, childhood from scanned photos, etc) but with the limited amount of time in my life right now, I need to narrow down my focus and apparently I can hardly do ONE book a year. And the blog is becoming more and more of a challenge, one I won’t give up on, but still a challenge.
I edit my photos using Lightroom and keep everything very organized by month and year. It makes it easy when it comes time to begin a project or blog post, since I’m a very linear thinker. Lightroom partners with Blurb and I’ve done my last 3 books with them. In the past I’ve used iPhoto and Shutterfly, and am not as impressed, although the iPhoto book was better than Shutterfly.
When I started with my first book after Maggie was born, I tried to add text and notes, but that seemed too hard to maintain. I read this post:
http://ashleyannphotography.com/blog/2014/01/03/our-2012-family-album-blurb-photo-books/
and it helped me to decide that it was okay to just be a book of photos. I think I’ll try, in the next ones, to add test about where we were at, etc. And maybe one day I’ll weed through the blog and print some posts that actually have meaning or use.
I’m trying to be more intentional with all the pictures I take, what’s the point of them just sitting on my computer??
Yes, there’s a reason why I’ve only done one book, EVER! I have done yearly calendars, but I missed last year and haven’t done this year yet. The blog is my main priority. But the kids love the books and clanedars, so I’m trying to do more. Plus, Shutterfly is always having these 50% off deals. I’m not familiar with blurb, but I’ll check them out. I started a photography class tonight (I don’t think I’m actually going to learn much…it’s pretty basic), but I’m hoping to get info on good places to get prints/enlargements. I’ve been really unimpressed with shutterfly’s prints. Anyway, we were talking about that in the class: how great digital is, but how many more photos you take, but then nobody ever prints anything so they’re just sitting on your computer!