Tom and Alison Taylor ~ PicturesAndStories.com ~ 801.906.0609
HOW TO CHOOSE AND USE PHOTOS in a Personal or Family History Book A picture is worth a thousand words—and using pictures will help to make your personal/family history book much more compelling and enjoyable. Learn how to choose the right pictures to augment your story, and how to properly prepare them for inclusion in your book. WHY ARE PHOTOS SO IMPORTANT IN A PERSONAL OR FAMILY HISTORY BOOK? •
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Pictures add emotional impact. Even the most thoughtfully written and poignant story about your childhood dog, Butch, who once saved your life, can be made more poignant when beholding Butch’s scruffy face and big sad eyes. Even if you have only a small handful of photos or other graphic images— or if the ones you have are faded, scratched, or blurry—consider adding them anyway. Visual elements draw a reader deeper into the story. Printed material that includes even a small handful of visual clues is more likely to be read in the first place. A well-placed graphic can give the eye a place to rest, making reading a more pleasant experience. Your audience is used to being visually stimulated. Those who come after you have been raised on multimedia experiences. That’s not to say that they won’t still engage with a printed book—they will. But it has to be visually interesting or they won’t know how to relate to it.
WORKFLOW - BRAINSTORMING WITH PHOTOS
While you are writing your stories, you can concurrently gather any photos you might want to use in your history book. Looking at what photos you have will trigger additional memories that you might want to add to your narrative. However, don’t try to add photos to your text as you are writing it! Finish your text first, get your photos ready in a separate folder before you start your layout (or before you hire someone to design your book).
Tom and Alison Taylor ~ PicturesAndStories.com ~ 801.906.0609
I HAVE SO MANY PHOTOS! WHICH PHOTOS SHOULD I USE IN MY BOOK? There is a “sweet spot” where photos and stories align with your purpose, audience and scope of your project. Of course, not all of your stories have pictures to go with them, and you will have some pictures you want to use that aren’t connected to a story. But aiming for this sweet spot whenever possible will guide you in choosing your photos.
Some things to consider when deciding whether to use a photo: • • • • •
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Does it fit with the scope of this project? If you are writing a book about your war experiences, and you have twenty great snapshots from elementary school, you might want to just choose one of your youth and save the rest for a project about your childhood. Does it have emotional impact? Not every photo packs a dramatic whallop, but does it show something of the personality of the subject or place? Choose emotional impact over technical superiority if you have a choice. Does it have people in it? A photo of Aunt Bertha in her funny hat standing in front of the Eiffel Tower is far more interesting than a photo of the Tower alone. Don’t rule it out if it is a great photo but it is faded, scratched or torn. Such “patina” can add to the historical flavor of the piece, or if you prefer yours to be more pristine, you can improve a photo with photo editing tools like Photoshop. Don’t forget letters or important documents. Filling your book with every grade school certificate you ever received might be boring. But the first postcard you received from your wife? A sample of your mother’s handwriting? Your first grade report card? Fabulous. The right documents can add visual interest and color to your book. Is the scan or digital photo high enough quality for print? If the only available photo of your greatgrandfather is a small-res photo you pulled off a website, it won’t look great when printed. But if it’s all you have, you might want to use it anyway. Just be careful of filling your book with such photos. Whenever possible, make sure your images are at least 300 ppi (at the final print size.) Scan either as .tif or if you scan as a .jpeg, make sure your scanner is set to maximum quality.
CONSIDER CAPTIONS Captions help tremendously in making your book more enjoyable. Many readers will pick up a book and only look at the pictures and read the captions, so they should be able to get at least a flavor of the book from doing so. Captions can also serve to draw the reader further into the story. Don’t be afraid to make your captions interesting in and of themselves—they can be humorous, or tell a short story, or even ask a mysterious question that will make the reader want to know more. For more useful information on this and other topics related to life stories, subscribe to our email newsletter at www.picturesandstories.com. You can also follow Pictures and Stories on Facebook and Pinterest. © 2010, 2013 Tom and Alison Taylor, Pictures and Stories, Inc.