Like me, do you sometimes find it difficult to add text to your pages that involves more than a caption or simple title? Sometimes it is easy to come up with more details to add to our pages, and writing the text that accompanies photos just seems to flow. But if you find you need a bit of extra inspiration, one solution is to structure a photobook around questions and answers from an important person in your life--or else interview all of your family members for a variation on this theme. Use this interview format as a way to structure books celebrating a colleague’s retirement, a grandparent’s legacy, a special anniversary, or a new graduate’s celebration of his or her childhood or teen years and journey through school.
Here are a few variations:
Make Yourself the Star of the Book Through Journaling
Start by selecting your photos and getting the main layout done in your photobook. Add a few titles to your pages, and then for each page, come up with ten or fifteen questions you would ask someone about the photos. Imagine you are a stranger and have never seen the images before. Ask about the people involved, the places, and the memories.
Instead of keeping things more formal by using a question and answer interview format on your pages (which is also possible!), use the questions only as your starting point and journal the rest. You don’t even need to include the questions in the book—treat them as a source for your material. I sometimes work with pen and paper away from the computer and brainstorm ideas, then bring my notes back to the computer when I am ready to journal and complete my pages.
The Star of the Book: Question and Answer Interview
Make a snapshot of a special person’s background, hobbies, interests, work and family life by creating a series of questions to write out and have answered in your photobook. Don’t forget that the special person can be you! Don’t forget to include photographs from various times in this person’s life.
An Interview-Style Family Album
Give each family member a few two page spreads for themselves. Either interview each family member or give out a set of questions for each person to answer. If children are in on the project, help them choose and arrange the photos they want to use, and help them to write (or for older children, correct)