Christmas is a time for celebrating with the family, honouring traditions and making new memories together, which is what makes a photobook the perfect gift.
But with so many pictures to choose from on your phone, how can you even begin to choose the right ones to go in your book?
For a 20 – 30 pages photobook you’re going to need around 50 – 100 images, so there is lots of room for choice!
In general, when you are about to create a photobook, first, you need to know who is the photobook for and what is the occasion.
If it’s a 60th birthday You could use photos from their childhood as well as more recent images from their special day.
If it’s anniversary photobook you could include photos from their first date through to the present day, maybe even photos of them when they were little.
It also depends on what pictures do you have of course and decide how to tell the story in the photobook around what you have.
How about a photobook featuring the highlights of the past year? Even lockdown provided some treasured memories that we spent together with our loved ones.
But today I want to go a bit further and give you my top tips on how to choose photos for a yearly photobook that will make a perfect gift for Christmas.
When you are going through the last year’s photos, look out for special moments and pick a few from each one.
Things like birthdays, anniversaries, days out, summer holidays, first day of school, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and there’s Halloween coming up too.
On each of those occasions, try to pick the ones that you like the most, the ones that remind you of something that happened or someone who was there that you hadn’t seen for a long time.
Choose some that are formal, like when you ask your child to pose for the picture, but also the one you caught spontaneously when they were doing their own thing.It’s the ones when they aren’t looking, when they aren’t expecting the moment to be captured that are often the most precious and the most authentic.
Also, don’t feel like you can’t include random images with no theme. If they’re your favourite from the year, stick them in!
Now, you need to choose the best pictures in terms of quality too. Make sure they are:
1. Clear and not blurry
2. Well-lit and not dark (but not too bright, either)
3. Well positioned and do not cut off and body parts, like arms or legs or a head!
Saying that, the pictures don’t have to be ‘insta-perfect’…
Sometimes my little girl will do something so cute or dress up in something so funny that I have to reach quickly for my phone and take a shot, but the photo isn’t always as clear as I’d like.
If you’re the same, you should definitely use those pics in your photobooks, it’s moments like that you want to look back on and smile about forever!
The number one rule when you’re choosing pictures for your perfect Christmas photobook is to choose the pictures you like the most – they are what will make this gift so special.
And don’t forget to add in pictures of yourself, you deserve to be remembered too!
