Sharing digital images with family members less grounded in the world of digital technology is a difficult, if not impossible hurdle to overcome. Trying to convince parents and grandparents to visit your online web gallery, MySpace profile, or virtual slideshow to review your latest picture postings can be like trying to convince Iran to stop pursuing nuclear technology; a very tough sell.
Words like megapixels, resolution, gigabytes, and media cards sounds like esoteric jargon to the technologically impaired, existing in an intangible virtual outer space, separate and apart from their coffee table photo albums, and family brag books. Instead, mothers will pay ten dollars for a throw-away camera they know they can drop off to Ed at the CVS picture lab the next day, while their children's 10 megapixel Canon and Nikon digitals collect dust in the closet.
When it comes to picture reproduction, parents and children could not live on more separate planets. However, a new remedy bridging the generational gap can be found in photo books.
What's Old Is New Again
These new digital twists on scrapbooking and photo-albuming are not only a unique way to see your Photobucket regulars, and Facebook treasures, on real life, tree-spawned pages, but one that makes you into somewhat of a hero to your older family members. By taking your digital images, once held hostage in Compact Flash (CF) cards and jump drives, and freeing them to be admired by all in book form, is like the Holy Grail of photo reproduction, upgrading your title from picture enthusiast to photo book author.
Last summer, I traveled to Japan, and documented my every breath with my Canon. As friends and acquaintances regularly enjoyed my MySpace web gallery, my picture phone texts, and virtual slideshows, leaving comments and sending them to their friends, my parents were limited to the half a dozen shots I committed to printing. My guilt overtook me when my mother was stripped of her bragging rights at my cousin's wedding because she had no photo album of evidence supporting her claim that her daughter was a world traveler. Something had to be done.
I enlisted the help of Shutterfly; a web-based system that lets you design and create your own photo book. I visited the company website, quite fitting addressed wwww.shutterfly.com, and created a user account. Once I logged in, I put together a profile I entitled "Japan," uploaded my images, and then customized my book.
Designing a photo book was like designing a Facebook or MySpace profile, instead of uploading to Photobucket, you upload to Shutterfly. Depending on whichever package you choose, you are given a certain number of pages to decorate with images and photo descriptions. My Japan profile is always saved on my Shutterfly account, so I can add and swap out images, increase pages, change descriptions, and order another book whenever I want.
Choices Everywhere
Even within the photo industry itself, photo books are a lucrative resource for retailers and photographers, and were fixtures at exhibitor booths at both the recent PMA and WPPI 2007 trade shows. Companies are creating technologies that streamline the process of making photo books, such as Xerox's iGEN3 digital press, and designing desktop systems like Albumprinter, BV, who are offering complete B2B publishing software.
The multitude of photo book companies that are flooding the market are good news for anybody with parents and family members looking for tangible photo output, separate from the digital applications promoted in personal profiles and web galleries. Also, photo books are good news for those children who need to ingratiate their mother's ego with a constant supply of brag books she can show to her friends.