The album’s I generally offer my clients are AsukaBook photobooks. 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. The storybooks I offer generally have 80 pages, leaving ample space to really chapter & tell the tale of a wedding.
I don’t offer many album options – usually just a perfectly formed, beautifully-finished 10×10″ Master Storybook with either gloss or matt laminated pages. I also offer a 12×12″ upgrade with the option to have the binding ‘lay flat’ instead of book-style crease down the spine (as above). You can read more about my albums in my post about them here or in another post about an award-winning asukabook album design I created here.
I’ve never really wanted to offer the more traditional, leather-bound ‘air loom’ style albums, such as the Queensberry range. Not only are they cumbersome and so expensive they become a bit too precious to cart around to show them off, but they generally have such thick pages they’re restricted to having less pages and therefore a smaller selection of wedding images. Because of these characteristics, many of them spend their lives bound in tissue paper in the loft, or under the bed.
That said, they are beautiful, and I blogged about a special one off Queensberry ‘Duo’ I did for a lovely couple a while back – check it out here.
Although most clients love the storybooks I create, I like to supply them with the vision they had for their wedding album. One couple last year, Emma & Matthew, wanted something between the traditional matted Queensberry and the photo-paper storybook, and a supplier I found to do the job was called Loxley Colour. I use them to do all my professional photographic prints, and they’ve always been great.
The album I created for them was a one of Loxley’s Bellissimo Perfetto albums
In their words they “offer a ‘simply perfect’ seamless spread for your images across the spine area of the album … flush mounted edge-to-edge, using traditional photographic paper”.
As well as a flat-opening album, Matt & Emma also wanted an album with thick card pages. Some albums suppliers have such thick card pages that it impedes the number of spreads you can include in an album. But I like the thickness of Loxley’s card pages. Mainly because you can still create a 40 spread (80 page) album (the same number of pages I included in my AsukaBooks), without it being ridiculously thick!
The reason I’ve got their album to photograph was because I recently met another client who wanted a similar album, so Matt & Emma kindly lent me their album to show them. It met all the other couples requirements, and they also liked my clean layout.
I’ve always been into graphic design, and try to avoid ‘jazzy’ layouts; with tacky borders, overlaying images and apertures of varying opacity. I like to keep things smart, and on black pages I surround images with a white key-line & with dark grey bands around the spread.
On white spreads I do the opposite, with black key-lines and grey bordering.
I also like to chapter the story with ‘Morning Preparations’, ‘Marriage Ceremony’, ‘Afternoon Reception’ & ‘Evening Reception’ spreads.
I photograph the day with these chapter pages in mind.
The ‘lay-flat’ AsukaBook albums I offer also allow me to really spread my design over two pages, but I really like the way these Loxley albums are seamlessly flat.
Plus, I like to use the 12×12″ square page layout, as photos look great in portrait, landscape and full-page spreads.
The finish on the albums is still great after a solid year of Matt & Emma showing it off! They say its’s definitely done the rounds!
Matt & Emma’s wedding was a fab day at East Riddlesden Hall.
I did a wedding fair the other day, as I’m one of the approved National Trust suppliers there.
You can see their wedding highlights on the blog I did about their day here.
Their portrait shoot was lots of fun, but it’s always good to see them laid out & brought to life on the page
Even across the hinge, image clarity isn’t lost and the crease hasn’t lost any colour
I loved this ‘hero’ image of their bubbles, outfits, rings & details, next to a few relaxed portraits.
Like last time I photographed an album, this little face popped up to see what I was up to!
Silly little Kyra!
One fun spreads in their album showed loads of guests wearing the ‘Matt Masks’ the guys wore at Matt’s stag do!
I like to finish all my wedding albums with my couple’s favourite pre-wedding image, and this one of them walking away between the apple trees at East Riddlesden Hall in their casual clothes, makes for a great closing image.
A massive thank you to Emma & Matt for the loan of their album! Having seen their album again, I’m considering printing a Loxley sample for myself to offer as an option to clients. It was great to see them both again and have a good natter about photography, coffee, travel, dining out and other good things. I do like to keep in contact with clients and it’s lovely to see them doing so well.