Timeless Photo Albums: Printing Photo Books For Your Children

My children are the reason why I pick up my camera.  Even before they were born and before I even knew them, I picked up my camera and documented our life for them.  Photographs are incredibly important and powerful to me.  Someone recently said that a story only lasts about 2 generations before it is forgotten and that made me so sad.  I want our children to know our story and I want their children to know our story.  I want my children’s children to see images of their parents when they were babies and to truly know who they were, at the beginning of their life.  It’s a gift I am giving my children, and my grandchildren.  While verbal stories can be forgotten easily, I think photographs retain stories that can be passed down from generation to generation.  Photos help to make a story timeless.  So when it comes to printing photos, I am passionate about creating timeless photo albums for our girls because I envision them showing their own children their story one day, through photographs.

For our children, they each receive an individual album of their first year.  This album begins with their first breath and ends at their first birthday, documenting each and every milestone throughout their first year.  I also print family yearbooks for my husband and I to keep, one for each year.  With our littlest turning one last month, I just printed her first year album and had goosebumps when it arrived in the mail.  It is everything that I hoped it would be.  Because I get many questions about photo printing and how I navigate photo book making, I am happy to share my process for creating timeless photo albums to inspire you to finally print your family photos.

For a complete guide on how I photograph my baby girl’s first year, be sure to read The First Twelve.  And to learn how I document our everyday moments between milestones, be sure to read The Everyday Photograph.

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Timeless Photo Albums: Printing Photo Books For Your Children

Why I Chose This Book

For my daughter’s first year album, I chose to create a 100-page, hardcover photo book with a partial jacket.  I only use Artifact Uprising for photo books because their quality is above the rest and their ink is very accurate.  I spend so much time perfecting my white balance so it is really important to me that my photos print accurately.  While their photo books are an investment, it is an easy purchase for me and I will tell you why.

Each year, I end up with around 1,000 final, edited photos of my family.  And those are just the final images.  If I were to disclose the actual number of images I took of my family, it would be in the 30,000+ range.  I tell you this to give you an idea of how much time I invest in memory making for my family.  Those final 1,000 edited images are created with hours and hours of photographing, culling, editing and story making.  At the end of the year, I want all of that time to count for something.  I don’t want those images hidden on my computer or put in a cheap album that can’t stand the test of time.  I easily invest a little more in a timeless photo album that I know will be an heirloom.  What I am trying to say is, although these books are an investment, think of the time investment you’ve already made all year long.  Your photos deserve to be beautifully showcased.

How Long It Took To Make

My final 100-page album contains 217 images and took around 2 hours to create, after I had decided on what images to use.  Deciding what images to use probably took me about 20-30 minutes.  I know that may seem like a long time to make a photo book, but I actually consider that pretty fast.  And let’s remind ourselves of the amount of time we spend all year long taking photos and editing them.  We spend hours upon hours editing and creating final images that I find that 2 hours of photo book making is actually pretty accurate.  After a year of dedicated photo taking and keeping up with editing, I feel that images deserve to be preserved in timeless photo albums.

So Many Pre-Made Layouts

The hardcover photo books include so many layouts that make creating a timeless photo album effortless.  Once you are creating your photo book, the layouts are available to choose from and you can decide, page by page.  I like to do a lot of storytelling with my images so it’s fun to choose layouts that are collage based so that I can create stories by grouping images together.  My favorite layouts to use are the full bleed and 4 image collage.  It allows me to showcase a favorite photo on a solo page, while fitting a large number of photos on the other page.  I also really like to use the 4 photo collage because it allows me to fit more images within my photo book.  And, like I said, my final image count at the end of the year is around 1,000 edited images…so I like being able to include as many as I can in the final book.

A True Keepsake

I love that my final book comes in a beautiful white box, with the photo book wrapped in paper inside.  While our family yearbooks are out on display to look through, our girls’ first year albums remain in their boxes.  Like I said, they are considered an heirloom item for my girls and I just like to keep them as protected as possible.  They are truly a gift for my girls and their future children.  There is something about knowing that their own children will look at these timeless photo albums one day that keeps me picking up my camera to document their everyday stories.

When it comes to timeless photo albums, I can’t help but choose these photo books time and time again to display our family memories.  I love that they are simple and classic, ensuring that they are just as beautiful 20 years from now as they are today.  I make our family yearbooks a little differently, but through the same company.  Be sure to sign up for my email list below to get access to my family yearbook post that is coming in the weeks ahead, it is going to be a wonderful resource to help you get your images in photo books for your family.  Creating timeless photo albums for your family is truly a gift and you should be so proud of yourself for taking the time to preserve your family memories to be enjoyed for years to come.

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