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, fantastically-crafted 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 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.
However, sometimes clients sometimes really want a traditional album, and ask if I could do them a special one off.
Emily & Martin were one such couple!
They booked me because they loved my photography, but had always envisioned a ‘traditional’ matted album, to stand as a kindof airloom for their kids.
So we went for a Queensberry album, and when it came I thought I’d snap a few images of it for the blog.
It certainly smelt great. Mmmm, leather.
Queensberry are a great company, making hand-made photograph albums over in New Zealand and shipping them all around the world.
I believe this badboy was 20 pages thick, which is only half the number of pages in my asukabooks.
If you ask me, Queensberry albums are silly expensive, but they certainly do have a stamp of quality to them.
Check out the debossed Q on the inside page.
We went for their ‘Duo‘ album, which lets you blend full-page ‘Digital’ image pages with matted overlays over stuck-in printed images.
The binding almost opens flat and feels built to last.
I like the idea of the ‘Duo’ album; being able to put a matt over part of the page & showcase another part.
It’s a shame there’s still a small gutter of white down the spine. I’d prefer the image to spread right across, even if it does end up folded.
But I do like how the matt adds a new creative element to framing the album images.
The layout ended up very similar to how I draft my photobooks, setting storytellers next to the ‘hero image’.
I loved this moment when Emily triumphantly lifted her bouquet after the confetti shot, so we made it a double-page spread.
The finish is great.
And I do like a square page layout to show off the story.
While I was photographing the album, Kyra’s little face popped up to say hello! I started to get a little concerned when she started licking her lips!
The speeches look nice laid this way.
Sometimes it’s nice using less images to tell the story. Less can be more, as they say.
Here’s the first dance & evening kayley in 4 pics!
We also ran our photobooth in the evening, so we squeezed in a double-spread of 24 photobooth highlights!
I like to close an album with a favourite pre-wedding image, but Emily & Mart really liked this image to close their story.
When they received the album, they were so pleased they sent me a bottle of Jura whiskey, which was the Whiskey Martin & his boys had in their hipflask at the wedding! A lovely touch.
I’m not saying I don’t like these albums, because the quality and finish is outstanding. However, the price and lack of layout space puts me off them. I always end up returning to my photobooks to really tell the wedding story the way I envisioned it.
So there you are! My thoughts on a Queensberry Duo! Cheers for reading peeps,
B