Personal Photographs in Book Format

There are a lot of good photographers on Dave's Garden so I wanted to share a recent experience on Christmas Day. Unknown to me, my daughter got into my photo files and put together a hardback book entitled "Birds of the Eastern United States". She gave it to me as a Christmas present. Needless to say, I was surprised, and extremely pleased. What a nice present when you often don't know what to get a person. Creativity goes a long way ...... Of course not everybody permits access to their photo files. She did it at a time that I was out photographing all day.

I only point it out because many of you could (and should) do the same. I may consider doing more of them myself. I'll be the photographer and the author and own the only one of its kind. It's a good ego trip ......

She used Shutterfly but there are a number of companies that do the same thing. Here is a photo of the final product.

And here is the binder .....

And this is the first page inside the cover. Some of the photos take up the entire pages while other pages have several photos on it. She just included the common name and scientific name but you can include a lot more commentary if you wish. It turned out quite nice.

Wow that is some keepsake to be passed down to children and grandchildren. Beautiful too since your photos are so good. I wonder how she was able to choose just one picture of each bird if all your photos were that awesome. My children have no interest in the birds so they would never have the smallest knowledge to compile a book of birds with given photos.
I am hoping to do something like that one day. Our camp is on an island and I have been trying to take pictures of as many different birds that I can. My 7 year old grandson drives me around to look for birds, alligators, deer etc. Sometimes I let him take some pictures too. I want to have something for him to remember the good times he and I had together at the camp.

Congratulations on a beautiful gift. That was a lot of work. I know you feel her love.

Wow Charlie! What a beautiful gift! I knew about this from Shutterfly and had considered it also, but what a nice thing to do as a surprise for someone else!

What a wondereful idea. I can tell how pleased you are I know I would be too.

Very nice present for Christmas!...easily handed down also. I thought about doing something similar, once I had enough quality photos to do a book on Warbler's...etc.

Wow what an incredibly thoughtful gift!! I'm so glad your pleased with it I would love to do something like this.

Nice! I made calendars once, but never a whole book.!!

Charlie, what a thoughtful thing for your daughter to do. Cunningly planned as well. I agree that your photos are worthy of their own book.

What a beautiful and thoughtful gift! I know the book is wonderful with your great photographs...which should be in a book!

Now THAT is pretty special! It is a great take on "scrapbook!" that many people do - and that is very proffesional looking! WOW!

I would love to do something similar - problem is my photo's "aint much to look at" - my book will have 3 pages (only 3 pics I know of that has the reasonable quality) LOL

Seriously your daughter is very creative!


OHHH, I just remembered, I belong to the dreadfull pic club - I can do 2 books and it will be funny - more arty than birdie! hehehe

This message was edited Jan 25, 2011 8:17 PM

You certainly raised that daughter to be thoughtful. I don't think she could have done anything more that could prove how proud she was of your talent with the camera. We all know you're good, but when a child says it, it's very special.

That book is really something special and I know every page is outstanding. Thanks for sharing your gift with us, it's beautiful!

I've done a couple books of my photos for my personal use, and yes, many companies do it. Yours looks like it turned out great.

What a nice thoughtful thing she did. And to see your photos compiled in book, that's precious . It's nice to know Shutterfly does something like that. Certainly something to look into.

Thank you all for your nice comments. I want to stop short of marketing any company's product but, as I said, numerous entities are doing it. My daughter is, as she prefers to be called, an educator. Last year the principal of the elementary school retired and she put together a book for her as a retirement present from her class. She had each child write some well wishes to the principal and then included their wishes, verbatim, along with the student's photo. We all thought it was such a superb idea and it turned out perfect.

Obviously, I am thinking about doing one for the "Bald Eagles at Conowingo Dam". I certainly have enough photos to put together a creditable publication that would do the place justice. I also thought about doing one on "Pileated Woodpeckers". Nonetheless, I will probably need some creative assistance form my daughter. Also, as I mentioned, I know a number of you have the photos and the narrative to put together a quality publication. Another thought for a book would be to use the "Bird Captions" thread as a focus point. That could be a big seller !!!

Thanks, again, for sharing your thoughts. Here's one last image of the center of the book showing a Yellow Warbler and a Pileated Woodpecker in a full page spread. I forgot to mention that the book was about 8 1/2"x11" but one can make different sizes.