Picture this- part 1, presents: photos of fun memories transformed into books, decor and more

Instead of my normal Friday Photos post of pictures from the week, I decided to post something picture related but not photos from the week. The week was mundane (though if I only posted events relating to non mundane events, I would only post about 11 times a year so clearly that is not a consistent criteria, lol). Really it stems from a severe dearth of picture taking. In a nutshell, but without photos, the week entailed Alyssa not going to her school building for school (a burst pipe over break at her school and subsequent clean up delays was the reason), Abby and Donnie heading back to the office for work Tuesday through Friday, Jacob having outpatient surgery, and me only subbing one day to be home with Jacob for his recovery, de-Christmasing the house and things like that. (Having surgery is/ was, not mundane, but I took zero pictures of any step anywhere in the process (for obvious reasons :))).

But photos are not far from my mind even if lacking on my phone and camera this week. I decided to write about some photo gifts that I gave this year for Christmas. In part 2, I plan to write more about where I like to purchase photo products and why. Not sure when that will be; perhaps the next time I have a mundane week and few pictures which will likely be next week ;)

Some years I do a better job in the gift giving category than others. This year, I feel like I did a good job with several gifts that I gave because they are meaningful and personal. Those gifts were photo gifts. 

Among purchases for gifts that I gave were photo prints. As I was looking through the stacks of prints that I ordered in December, I couldn't help but think of foregone times. A time when photo prints were frequently purchased because that was the only way to see images of photos taken. When the medium was film, not pixals, there was no way to see images without getting film developed and pictures printed. How times have changed thanks to digital cameras and phones on our cameras. Pixalated images can be seen seconds after the shot is taken. I will never forget how exciting digital cameras and the pictures taken therewith were to me when that technology first emerged. One of the few drawbacks that I see (pun intended) with digital photography is that people tend to not get pictures printed as much from their digital devices. Especially when cell phone cameras began to take really good photos, the great shots were clearly visible on the phones so the need to reproduce the images on paper became less and less important. With tending to get fewer photos printed (at least for me), it makes the prints more special.  

Recently, I made an observation about the nature of photo taking which impacts prints. With a camera camera (a devise whose sole purpose is picture taking), the default way to hold a camera results in horizontal pictures (the photo is longer than it is tall). Phone cameras are opposite. The default way to hold a camera phone when taking a picture results in pictures whose orientation results in vertical photos that are taller than they are wide. So generally speaking, photos taken from the two devices- a camera and and iPhone are going to result in different picture orientations. (Of course a camera and a phone can be physically rotated when taken, thereby changing the orientation.)

For instance, I pulled a random (old) photo album off of a bookshelf. Here is the first set of pictures taken with a camera. Notice the photo album has pockets for horizontally oriented photos. 

And here's one where three of the four photos printed are horizontally oriented. They were taken with a camera camera.

Where all this came to play was when I had a pile of iPhone photos printed out and ready to put in a photo album. This was going to be a gift for my brother John. I've gone out to visit him in Illinois the past three summers and we've gone to several site seeing places in IL plus some in Iowa and Missouri. On my trips out to see him, I've never taken my Nikon so all of the photos that I have from the trips are iPhone pictures. I decided to print the photos and place them in chronological order of our adventures in an album. 

Here was the problem. Almost all of the traditional photos albums that I found for sale had layouts that had photo pocket spaces for more photos with a horizontal orientation rather than a vertical ones. And what orientation were ALL of my photos? Vertical ones because they were iPhone pictures. So for the pictures to be placed in the albums with sideways/ horizontal photo pockets, the vertical oriented photos would be sideways in the album, not facing up directly. 

One workaround that I thought of was to cut an inch out of the top and bottom of the tall (vertical) pictures to cut them down to four inches high instead of six. For most of the photos, this would have worked. I could then have purchased 4 by 6 cardstock to place in the photo pocket of the album and then placed the (now) 4 by 4 picture into the pocket. The cardstock would act as a kind of mat or background that the photo would sit on top of. But some of the subject matters of the photos took up almost the entirety of the six inch height so cutting it down to four inches would have resulted in the subject of the photo getting cut. 

Eventually, I found a small photo album that held 4 by 6 photos vertically and bought that to use. The problem was that it was small and only held sixty photos. I had way more than 60 printed and that I wanted to use so I had to winnow down the photos to use. I was overall not too happy with how the project turned out. My brother liked the album which is the most important thing but he didn't "see" what I saw in my mind when I was envisioning the project. I may spend some time searching for photo albums that have pocket spaces better for the pictures that I have and redo the album for him. Or I may make a photo book for him. I think's he's more of an old school printed picture type guy rather than a photo book guy but he wouldn't scoff at a photo book, I'm sure!

Speaking of photo books, I made my sister a Shutterfly photo book of our weekend in PA. I knew she'd like this and she did! She and I have both done numerous photo books over the years and we enjoy looking at them quite a bit so I had no doubt but that she'd like a photo book of our weekend together. Online photo books ordered from the likes of Shutterfly are fun and easy to do, but it's easy to spend hours and hours and hours on them! With Shutterfly, option upon option upon option abound with regard to layouts, text boxes, font, frames around pictures, and stylistic add ons. I knew that it would be a time consuming project so I started on it in October and worked on it in many increments until it was finished and I placed the order in late November. It was a fun labor of love to do. Shutterfly had the option to order prints of all the pictures that I used in the photo book so I purchased prints for me. I love having the photos printed. It was interesting from a photo orientation perspective: because I brought my Nikon with me on the trip and took pictures with both my Nikon and my iPhone and used photos from both for the photo book, I could easily tell which photos I'd taken with my Nikon and which with the iPhone. The Nikon ones were all horizontally oriented while the iPhone ones were vertically oriented. Surprisingly, the photo quality was not all that different. (I expected the Nikon ones to be much better in quality.)

A picture of people looking at pictures (now someone just needed to take a picture of me taking a picture of people looking at pictures!!)

The stack o prints that I ordered for myself of all the photos that I used in my sister's photo book. 

I made photo Christmas ornaments for gifts, too, from Shutterfly and from actual pictures. For our friends who hosted us in Maine this summer, I made photo ornaments of scenes from Maine. They moved out of Maine shortly after we were there and now live in a different part of the country. I thought ornaments depicting the beauty of where they lived would be a welcome decor addition. If they don't care that much for them, well, they weren't a huge investment of money or time. 

I made a photo ornament for my brother and his wife, photo ornaments for decorations for Paige and Jacob's birthday dinner, a tabletop picture plaque for my brother John and a plaque for Paige with pictures of Jacob and her on it.

I enjoyed giving the gift of photos as well receiving my own printed pictures. Here's hoping for getting some great shots with my iPhone and Nikon, printing photos, and creating photo gifts in 2023!!