You go on a holiday or city trip and make heaps of photos. You might post some on facebook or instagram but most will end up in a folder on your phone or in the cloud, never to be fully enjoyed or even looked at again. What a waste! Turn your holiday memories into a fancy analogue masterpiece that you will browse through frequently. Here’s a quick guide on how to create a travel photo book. And where most photo book making efforts are exhausting and frustrating to say the least, this exercise will be quick, super easy and the outcome oh so pretty. Pinky promise!
1. ORGANISE
Like Benjamin Franklin used to say „by failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail„. A wise man beyond his years when it comes to making photo books as half the work can be done during your trip. Delete pictures that are ‘mwah’ immediately. Ask your travel companions to send you their favourite photos on the spot so you don’t have to chase them afterwards and the photos appear in your stream chronologically. Then, on the long (wifi-less) flight or ride back from your holiday, mark your favourite photos with a heart in your photo stream. Selection. Done!
2. START AS SOON AS YOU RETURN
The longer you take to start creating your travel photo book after you return, the more likely it is never going to happen. Your memory is still fresh and it’s nice to daydream about your trip over the photos. You’ve already made the selection (see #1), it’s already in chronological order, so its just a matter of uploading now.
3. USE TECHNOLOGY TO YOUR ADVANTAGE
It’s there. So use it to your advantage. If you’re a passionate instagrammer and all your favourite travel pics are on instagram, use Chatbooks. They will automatically generate a new book for you each time you hit 60 pics. And the best thing is that they only cost $8 each!
Blurb (first timers get 20% off) offers easy, affordable and pretty photo books. You can even publish your photo books so your travel companions can grab one as well. And if your book is really pretty, you can even make some money selling it on Blurb!
Resnap also allows for effortless photo book making, it automatically selects the best photos and creates an album with perfect lay out all by itself. You can customizs as you please or leave as is.
4. LAY OUT
To enhance the prettiness factor of your travel photo book we have a few pointers. Yes, it will take a little more time, but oh so worth it!
• Alternate between collage and a page filling photo and between people shots and scenery so your book becomes neat and eye pleasing
• If you have a journal, then take a picture of a few key pages of the journal and insert into your photo book
• Leave blank pages to write down anecdotes or stick travel items like museum tickets or business cards of your favourite restaurants.
• Ask special people you meet along your trip to write something in your journal. Again, take a picture of these pages and insert in your book
• For more travel photography tips, read the article we wrote earlier on travel photography
5. GIVE!
If doing it for yourself is not satisfactory enough, give a copy of your book to friends or family you travelled with. Memories are always the best gift. So whether it’s this year’s Christmas present, birthday gift or just a random act of kindness on your part, you’ll earn major brownie points!
We hope that from now on you’ll enjoy to create a travel photo book. So that your shelves will be filled with a life time of adventures! xoxo Amstel staff