Sorry, this post is starting to sound like a Mac commercial.
Now the real reason for this post....Mac photo books. I love how easy these books are to make and the quality is unbelievable. Once I set the book up by clicking and dragging photos and adding some text, I hit the button "Buy Book" and the published photo book magically shows up on my doorstep a few days later. (Okay, so I had to enter some credit card and shipping information when I first set up my Mac two years ago.) I use iPhoto to make a memory book for Sienna's grandparents each Christmas. I include all my favorite photos, Sienna's scanned artwork, and excerpts from my journal.
If you don't know me then you don't know that I am obsessively organized. I save everything, label everything, file everything, write down lists of everything....I have notebooks, upon notebooks of stuff. I just have this "thing" about preserving a story, a legacy....it is super-crazy-OCD-nostalgia (read my 2003 artist statement and you'll see how out of hand it gets at times). When it comes time to put the photo book together each year I have a really hard time narrowing down what to include....I almost have a nervous breakdown when doing it because I just want to include every memory, minute-by-minute. In a perfect world my yearly photo book would be 10,000 pages long (and would probably cost $10,000).
Below are some excerpts from the 2008 book. I couldn't post the whole thing because it was just too large a file. I hope it will give you some ideas for your own book.
Excerpts From Sienna 2008 Book
Excerpts From Sienna 2008 Book
Child's Art Portfolio: Scan all your children's drawings and artwork. Add titles, dates and descriptions.
Family Recipe Book: Take pictures of all your favorite dishes and include the recipes.
Story Book: Let your child draw the pictures and dictate the story to you.
Memorial Book: When my grandfather died I took all the best pictures of his infectious smile, the ones with his funny hat, with his roses etc and made huge displays for his wake so that everyone could remember him that way. My next project is to make all of those into a book with the beautiful eulogy quoted throughout.
Like Shrek, you are like an onion... you have many, many layers. That's why you have to be so organized. Your mind is going 110 mph and you have to create some sort of order or you'd be in a tornado of thoughts and ideas. Something like that, right?
ReplyDeleteI like that explanation! I also love that you compared me to Shrek...LOL.
ReplyDeleteOK, i s need you to teach me how to use photobooth etc. got a new imac a few weeks ago (always been pc before that) and I don't understand how to use iphoto or booth or whatever! still transferring my data to the mac but when I am done might need to pick your brain!! :)
ReplyDeleteLove sienna's book. specifically the letters. :) beautiful. finley did a lot of the same things, including pouring water from one cup to another for hours :)