Tip: A doable photobook idea for your holiday

Monday 29 July 2019, 15:51 by Elvira Smit | 5,349 views | 2 comments

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

Imagine you are on holiday with several people. With friends or with your family. What are the chances that someone will put together a photobook at the end of the holiday? I fear they are very small. But not with this recipe.

Recently, I was sitting on a terrace with my sister. She was going on holiday afterwards, with her boyfriend and two children.

We talked about the backlog of photobooks, because there were still loads of trips that needed to be turned into photobooks, and about how nice it would be if photography was occasionally a topic of conversation during that holiday too.

One and one makes two, I thought. So here is my step-by-step plan for a Particularly Doable Photobook Project. There is no limit to the number of participants:

1. Take at least one photo per day

Everyone takes at least one photo per day of the holiday. That seems doable to me. Even for people who do not take many photos. You can of course take 93. The key is that everyone submits one photo per day. You choose which one.

2. Send the photo to the ‘photo collector’ every day

Send your photo of the day to the person who is going to make the photobook. Of course, not via WhatsApp, because that comes at the expense of your photo quality. Choose email, Airdrop or even a carrier pigeon if you like, but not WhatsApp.

Alternative: everyone keeps track of their own photo choices and solemnly promises to send the whole lot immediately after the holiday. Anyone who does not do so pays for the next holiday, or faces another suitable punishment.

3. Discuss the photo choice every day

Set aside a fixed moment during the day, for example during dinner, to show your own ‘photo of the day’. Explain why you chose that particular photo. Build in a one-day delay, so that photos taken late in the evening can also be included. A nice result: this way, you look back at the holiday every day, but through someone else’s eyes.

4. The photo collector makes the photobook

When you get home, the photo collector makes the photobook. That is no longer such a hellish job, because that person already has all the photos and now only has to fill the book.

Choose one page per day with the submitted photos on it, or go through the individual series separately, so that you experience the holiday four times, for example.

Countless variations on the theme

Of course, there are all kinds of variations on this theme. Here are a few, but do feel free to run with the idea yourself 🙂

• Do the daily photo selection together, choosing each other’s best photo, for example;


• Write themes on slips of paper and put them in a lucky dip. Everyone takes out a slip and uses that theme as the common thread in their holiday series;


• The participants take turns coming up with a word of the day, which the photo has to build on;


• Add a division of tasks: person 1 takes photos of people, person 2 of abstract shapes, person 3 of original selfies, and so on.

The advantage of this photobook approach is that when you get home, you are not left with 782 unedited photos, while still having to get another 312 from someone who never gets round to sending them.

Choosing a selection and creating a suitable page layout is also so time-consuming that 99% of well-intentioned plans fall apart at this point. The book then never gets made.

Hopefully it will this time. Good luck!

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