After an exciting and busy wedding season, the latter half of this year has been a period of serious album design! After spending July in Africa doing some charity photography (which can be viewed by clicking categories in the menu above & selecting Charity Photography) some clients waited a little longer than I usually like while I turned around their albums, but everything has now gone to print at AsukaBook, my current album supplier, in time for their Xmas delivery deadline.
Before doing my photography I used to do a lot of graphic design and I still enjoy the process of laying out my wedding photography into it’s natural story. I’ve often thought of my photographic style as being that of a visual storyteller, and my album choice and style has evolved as a consequence of that.
I never really wanted to offer traditional, giant leatherbound, airloom-type albums. Not only are they cumbersome and so expensive they become too precious to cart around and show off, but they generally have such thick pages they’re restricted to having less pages and can therefore show off only a small selection of a clients wedding images. Because of these characteristics, many of them spend their lives bound in tissue paper in the loft, or under the bed.
Instead I offer storybooks with 80 pages, leaving ample space to really chapter & tell the tale of a wedding.
Many photographers offer different packages with different numbers of images in different types of albums. Personally, I currently offer one main option – a portable, perfectly formed, fantastically crafted 10×10″ Master Storybook with either gloss or matt laminated pages. I draft up the story the way I think tells it best (generally spreading 200+ images across all 80 pages) then I email a PDF of the layout to the client to make around 20 changes by referring to their high-res image DVD.
I’ve found this to be an efficient way to turn an album around, without compromising my artistic vision of the wedding or putting the client through the emotional torment of culling the majority of their their wedding images or having to go to the bank manager to extend their mortgage.
Once my clients main photobook has been drafted, I then offer 3 parent album book types (featuring the same layout & number of pages as the Master Storybook), as well as a newly offered option from Asukabook to create a ‘lay-flat book’ which doesn’t loose any image down the spine. Then off they go to print!
That’s the way I roll with album design!
I’ve compared the quality of many suppliers and have found Asukabook to offer the best quality photobook on the market in both build and print quality. As a wedding photographer my samples have been well thumbed, and yet they still look mint. Not only can I rely on the product and the fact that they’re exclusive to the professional photography market, but it’s also fantastic knowing that Andrew & the team are only a call away and are always willing to go that extra step.
This is why I currently choose AsukaBook to bring to life my wedding photography.
Not all clients want photobooks, however, and there are a few other interesting suppliers in the marketplace at the moment. Now the busy wedding season is over I’m looking into offering some other exciting album options early next year. Watch this space!