Photo Book Challenge

I love photo books. I love that they tell a story..that they bring those digital files to life…that friends and family who visit our house can see the memories we've created.

I used to collect photo boxes, scrapbooks, and photo albums. I have hundreds of prints and negatives sitting in boxes or scrapbooks in my house, both in Virginia and Rhode Island. I used to print all my photos as soon as the last photo was snapped on a roll of film - I couldn't wait to get them back from Ritz Camera! There was something magical and exciting about opening up that envelope of photos - those glossy prints were a surprise and a fond memory of things of the past. They were tangible…they were real!

I miss those days. The days of taking film to a lab, waiting for the prints and filling an album, frame or scrapbook with beautiful memories. I guess that's where my love of photography all started...

We keep our memories stored on a hard drive now. Locked away for only our eyes to see. We take so many photos now that they aren't even special enough to print. I am the first to admit that I have over 1,000 photos stored on my iPhone - most of them are not worth printing, only sharing in a post on Instagram or Facebook.

Call me old fashioned, but this is disappointing…our memories are fleeting, destined to vanish into "the cloud" or a hard drive. It is my mission to change this. To change the way people share and store their photos - their precious memories!

I started with a photo book from my favorite company, MyPublisher, of our beautiful engagement photos. If those aren't worth printing, I don't know what is! I have used a few other companies - Snapfish, Shutterfly, etc. but what I love about MyPublisher is the ease of creating a book through their system, the constant sales (who doesn't love 50-75% off?!), and the quality of the album. They provide so many options - various cover styles & materials, glossy vs. matte, flat pages, cases etc.



I vowed this month to take the last few years of files and put them into albums - those memories are worth printing and we will cherish them as a family for years to come! I challenge you to do the same.