Red Book

For years my husband has taken the pictures for family events from birthdays to weddings to holiday get-togethers. He's taken them for my slide lectures and newspaper columns, and now for this blog. More and more, they're ephemeral creations that appear briefly and are forgotten. 

There are always so many images I want to enjoy before they disappear that I created the "Photo of the Week." I would print out an 8" x 10" glossy of a picture that Mark had recently snapped and hang it over my desk at work. They were great conversation pieces and drew lots of compliments for his work as well. 

Last Valentine's Day I decided to showcase some favorites in a little photo book for him. Being a low-tech, fountain pen kind of girl, I opted to use one of my favorite Kolo products, the Vineyard paper album with ribbon ties (7" x 8" size, $11.95 according to the tags on my books). Though Kolo has it's own Web site, I've bought my books at Archivers and Barnes & Noble stores. I currently have a nice little stash, mostly purchased on sale when they close out a color. 

Given the occasion, I used an album with the appropriate color cover — RED — and all the photos were red as well. The opening page had this picture of me (below) and the hand-written title: "A Red Book for my Valentine." 

One reason I like to use this kind of a DIY book is that I can make all the decisions: size of photos, how many per page, how close to the edge of the page do I put the picture, symmetrical or asymmetrical pairs and on and on.

You can see that not only did I decide to go with asymmetry here, but that I loosely interpreted the concept of "red." Here the red is only a detail in each picture. The book contains images that are red-violet and red-orange and mauve red and pink and magenta.

Initially, I planned to use only floral images and they do predominate. But then I thought about how many photos Mark takes of industrial objects. And how much he enjoys quirky combinations. 

So I paired this picture of snow on the berries of our Washington Hawthorn tree ....

with this round, red, end-of-winter image:

Red-orange and bits of black suggested this picture ...

... was an ideal match with this image:

Most of us make these kinds of photo pairings and comments every day on our blogs, but there is something special about making a book that you can pull off the shelf and enjoy again and again — or pop in the mail as a special treat for someone else. 

I would say more but they may be reading!

DISCLAIMER: I discovered Kolo books a few years ago and have used them ever since. And no, I am not receiving any benefits for writing about them.

Comments

[Pam/Digging (Austin)]

Great idea, Linda. (And our disclosures may become the standard now, right?)

I made a book of family and garden photos for my parents and parents-in-law for Xmas. It was much more appreciated than the usual gift item that they didn't really need.

[LINDA from EACH LITTLE WORLD]

Pam — you're right about them being great gifts and about disclosures.

After I wrote this post, I got to the end and suddenly realized that if I didn't add a disclaimer, then my comments might be seen as "product placement." I'm used to just recommending things I like, but it felt right to add that note.

[Easy and Elegant Life]

This is a fantastic, creative and lovely idea! (And lucky you to have a husband with a good eye. Photos are totally beyond my ability. I opt for the shoot lots, one will work out route.)

[LINDA from EACH LITTLE WORLD]

He does have that artist's eye! We've done these a couple of times as thank-you gifts after a country weekend and they've been much appreciated.