Finding Happy Thoughts : Happy Thoughts Preserved

In this age of digital cameras, we take hundreds and even thousands of pictures at every event or trip. However, the irony is we hardly print pictures anymore. So even if we have tons of photos in our hard drive, we hardly get to see them after the first time we view them. I still try to print out photos but when I got introduced to photobooks, it totally changed the way I looked at printing pictures. It wasn't just about having a printed copy of photos I took, it became a way to tell a story through the photos.

To date, I've only done two photobooks.

The first photobook I made was Miguel's baby book. It contained milestones and relevant events from his conception (ultrasound photos included) until a little bit after his first birthday.

The second photobook was about our family's US trip in 2008. The pictures I printed got soaked during the flooding in our house caused by Ondoy so when good friend Kathleen gifted me with a voucher, I saw it as an opportunity to re-tell the adventures of that trip.

What I love about photobooks:

book-quality binding (kaya nga photobook ang tawag eh! hehe)
it allows you to be creative --- you can choose to do scrapbook style design, choose or create your own layouts, fonts etc.
it's so easy to add captions, anecdotes or any trivia you might want to go with the photo
it has an easy to use program: there are available layouts to choose from and you just simply drag and drop your photos.
they deliver ultrafast! (I get giddy excited everytime I got a notice of delivery.)

Is there a downside to photobooks?

Well, it can be quite pricey vs. regular photo printing but Photobook Philippines pretty much regularly have a discount coupon being sold at beeconomic or metrodeal so it somewhat evens out.

Also I noticed sometimes, pictures tend to have darker prints but I've kinda expected as there are times I'm too lazy to edit my photos.

The binding of my second photobook wasn't perfect but still good.

Just the same, I can't wait to do my next photobook. I'm planning to make a Family Yearbook for 2012.

Anyway, sharing with you some of my favorite lay-outs below (I took pictures below using my mobile so don't mind the poor quality) :-)