The following post is co-authored by DPS author Neil Creek and his wife Naomi. Naomi is a graphic designer with twenty one years experience as a layout professional. They recently colaborated on a photo book – A Roadtrip Through Southeast Australia. This post draws upon that experience.
You can give your photos a more professional appearance, show your work to a wider audience and add impact through story, by creating an electronic photo book from your work.
The Solo Photo Book Month, or SoFoBoMo project called on photographers to “make solo photo books start to finish, in 31 days, at more or less the same time.” Neil loves participating in photography projects, and we were planning a short roadtrip right in the middle of the project window, so it was a perfect opportunity. We’ll use this book as a case study.
Why a Photo eBook?
- It forces you to select your very best photos
- It presents your best photos in a neat and attractive format
- You can tell a story and increase your photos’ impact
- People are more likely to look at a small collection of high quality images than a big unfiltered gallery
- Being in a self-contained book format makes it easy for people to pass around to their friends
- You have complete control over the presentation, look and associated information rather than being tied to a web site’s style
- You sound so much cooler saying “Would you like to see my book?” than “Would you like my flickr address?”
- It’s something novel and will make people more likely to remember your work
Why Electronic Format?
- It’s essentially free, a high quality printed book can be very expensive per copy
- It’s easy to put together without worrying about the often mysterious demands of print
- It can be done with cheap or free tools that anyone can download
- You can include interactive elements such as hotlinks and multimedia content
- You can reproduce and distribute it with little effort
- For the above reason it can be seen by so many more people
- You can easily make revisions or corrections, even once the book has “gone live”
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