Photography Books

There are many themes that can be chosen for photographic books and what you wish to achieve with your book, that will determine the format of your layout.

Books can be used for many, many, purposes. They can be used for holiday snaps, to compile a portfolio, to tell a cultural tale, to discuss a topic, or virtually anything. A wedding album, or photograph album, is really just a book by another name.

Once deciding what kind of book you are looking to produce, you then need to think about the setting of the photographs. Do you make each photo a single page, or do you want multiples in order to create additional, or different interest on a single page.

I travel a lot, and I use photographic books to enable my friends and family to see where I have been. It is great to be able to sit at the computer and review the images that you have taken, and with various websites you can reach millions of people with your images, if you want to.

However, not everyone wants to sit at a computer and therefore publishing on line is not necessarily the best medium for sharing the pictures with others. Hence I have a number of books that sit on a coffee table, that my family and friends can look at if they wish.

In these, typically I will add several images to a page, but will mix and match sizes to create the best effect and to tell the most I can about a place, or a situation, within a single, or double, page.

For greater effect, or to relate a particular scene, you can span a couple of pages

As well as the images themselves, you need to think about the type and quality of the paper to be used and the backgrounds to be applied.

Great emphasis can be applied to images by the use of coloured backgrounds. In the image below, I was standing inside a church, which was dimly lit. The light outside was so bright that I was able to capture the image and with the settings employed, managed to ensure an almost black background. Using a black page, I was able to exaggerate the emphasis on this particular image.

Positioning the doorway on the right also draws your eye to the right. Add to this the fact that this was published on a right-hand page and as you turn the page over, you are instantly met with the vision through the door.

Books can be published from all over the internet or from places like Boots, Jessops, and many other High Street outlets.


I chose not to publish my images within a book, as I did not want to restrict the ability of my classmates to be able to view them too. Books are excellent and there is a time and a place for them, but (cost aside) I decided that this was neither the time nor place for presenting my images in this way.