Photo Book Themes – Pt 2

Here are some more prompts and ideas to help get going on a brand-new photo book project and want to try something a little bit different!

Make Your Own Alphabet Book

This idea has many fun variations!  The best thing is that it is not only for toddlers.  Make an alphabet for an older child, and include some of his or her own writing and scanned drawings.  Or make a book for yourself or for someone special your alphabet book can be as simple or as embellished and story-packed as you want.

You may find yourself picking up your camera and going on the hunt for perfect subjects for your pages even to compliment photos you’ve already taken weeks, months or years ago.  An alphabet book is a great project for new baby; for newlyweds; as a wedding shower gift; as a welcome or farewell gift for someone leaving or starting a new a job,  moving out of the country, or simply moving out of (or into!) your neighbourhood.  Try one as a graduation gift, or as a travel book highlighting a unique way to organize pages from a vacation or a special trip.

Do an Easy Variation on the Photo-A-Day for a Year

Take the idea but keep it very simple!  The beauty of any project with limits like this is that you don’t have to fret about what kind of structure to use for your photobook project—the order of the photos (and even the layout itself) is set out for you ahead of time.  Keep it very simple!  If you have a week’s vacation, take a set number of photos every day, each day of the week.  Or collapse this idea even more, and take one photo every hour for twelve hours (or two...or five) on a day you have to yourself.  If you have kids, you might want to vary the activity and let them each do one “chapter” of the photo book.  Sometimes kids can capture the perfect close-up or get a great shot the rest of us might not have dared to try (or lucked into, as a fluke!).

Get Some Photos Scanned

Having taken some advice from traditional paper-and-scissors scrapbooking friends, I usually work backwards from my most recent photographs, getting my most recent photobooks organized and printed before I tackle other projects.  This is great as a general rule, but if you are feeling like you’ve been doing the same kinds of albums for a while, then getting some older print photos scanned can be a great source of inspiration.  Many things can inspire family heritage photos, your own childhood photos, or childhood photos from a family member who might enjoy spending a few spare hours telling you about the times, as well as the people and places that were special to him or her.

I hope a few of these prompts help get the creative ideas flowing and inspire a new project or two.  You may find that there are variations on each theme that can take you in completely different directions, even from one project to the next, in your own work.  You can even ask a friend to join you on a photo shoot or compare results for the same album challenge.  It can be amazing how two people can take the same challenge or theme and come up with completely different and inspiring results.