Recently a relative,, who at 74 was about to undergo another round of chemo, told me she has been going through her "memory box." "I don't know what to do with this stuff, these photos," she said. "Maybe I'll just toss them."
"No, don't do that." I countered "Maybe you can create a legacy book. A gift that your children and grandchildren can cherish...a way for them to learn about who you were, and who you are." I told her about the photo books, well over a dozen, that I had made.
The digital revolution in photography has made this possible...we have scanners to capture old prints and negatives, and digital cameras to capture the important and mundane moments of our more recent lives. These images can be assembled in amazing and wonderful ways...for coffee table books, DVDs set to music, calendars, personalized cards, and more.
I've been my family's personal paparazzi for many years, so I've had my own moments of "shoebox madness," where I felt compelled to take accumulated prints and organize them into photo albums. I must have at least 40 photo albums and many slide carousels.
Today, "shoebox madness" has been replaced with "hard drive madness." All those images...so easy to capture with our fabulous cameras, and download to our computers, until we have to get external hard drives or even bigger and better computers to hold them all.
And then what? How do we enjoy them? Yes, there is the world wide web and various sites for sharing, digital picture frames, key chains and all sorts of gadgets.
But my absolute favorite is the photo book or coffee table book. I discovered the web site, MyPublisher.com, through a newspaper article a few years ago. I downloaded the program and embarked on making my first photo book...about who else? Myself. "Elizabeth -- Her Life and Times."
What I liked was the simple way I could capture my life story, using photos and text, and then make copies...in various sizes, for other people. No more worry about grabbing the photo albums on the way out of the house in an emergency...like an earthquake. Each child has a copy.
In my book, I'm able to encapsulate my early life, my grade school and high school photos, my graduation from college, old boy friends, my stint with the Foreign Service, my marriage, my huge babies (11 lb. 15 oz. and ll lb. 4 oz.) who are now tall and healthy adults, and my journey through life: 43 years of marriage, back to school in midlife, starting a career as I turned 50, having a health challenge, studying for the ministry, and more. I also created a DVD with music, but frankly, I find I'm much more likely to take out one of my books than look at a DVD.
The books come in different sizes...from small paperback to classic hardcover to jumbo size. I've tried all of them. The classic hardcover in fabric or leather works best for me.
My family were my first subjects. Since I created my husband's book several years before he transitioned in 2008, I had a beautiful legacy book, as well as a DVD and large collage available for his Memorial Service.
My son enjoyed his book and DVD, which he has shown to friends as well as to various young women, and he reports they made an impact. So...one never knows who may enjoy these photo creations.
After noticing how much my grandson enjoyed looking at different photo books I had given his family, I completed my daughter's life story in two beautiful leather-bound volumes. This holiday season, I created a life story book for her husband, which he loves to share with his two young children (who have photo books dedicated to their exploits by Grandmama).
So if you wish to unleash your creative juices, to activate your artistic expression with vision, love and today's technology, a photo book is great project. It says: I see your loving essence; I am a witness to your life; you are important and unique; you are an expression of the divine in action. And so it is.
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