Giving your pictures as gifts

Photos for grandparents and family photo books aside, I have given two large framed prints as gifts. Both were unexpected and well received. Also, in both cases the subjects of the photos had important sentimental value to the receivers of the gift. I guess what I'm saying is that they were pretty safe gifts. Do it for those people who you know are genuinely interested in your photos.

Cheers,
Rob
 
I've given framed photos as gifts, but mostly to family and something that's meaningful. The few I've given to non-family members usually involve their newborn, maybe a wedding photo for newly weds, or something along those lines.
 
I received for my birthday this year a book put together by my son and his wife showing their family, including our two grandsons. It was a very special gift and is much treasured. I recently sent framed photos of my cousin to her husband which I had taken on a recent visit to England. She is dealing with the early stages of motor neurone disease and dementia- and had not had her photograph taken for years. Her smile was radiant, capturing a rare moment in time, which will last for darker times ahead.
 
I've done this a few times with people being thrilled to get certain pictures. My uncle died in early 2004 and my aunt was still down in the dumps as the holidays approached. She said something to me about it was sad that there was no picture of all 6 grandkids and that she and my uncle would have loved one.

Well, I got on the phone and got my cousin (her son) who lives next door to let me set up my lights and backgrounds in his living room. We called his sisters and made sure ALL the grandkids would be there. We snuck all of the kids over to his house for 30 minutes while her daughters kept her busy. At Christmas, we gave her the framed picture of all the grandkids and she was so thrilled. To me it was well worth the hassle to see the look on her face.

I've also given away several of my pictures of hummingbirds in flight...kind of nice to stop by someone's house and see your work displayed in their living room.
 
I've never done a book, but I do give some friends and family framed pictures. I select ones that I like, and most of the time related to a special event we shared through the year, could be a portrait of the person, a scenic you both shared on holidays and so on.
In all cases its been well received, but I don't give them to people who don't seem to show any interest in art/photography/my hobby.
I find it a very personal gift, especially compared to the garbage you normally get from siblings, we've all left home long ago, and if we want/need something, the chances are we've already bought it, so all you end up with is a collection of cheap cr@p from gift shops.

Go for it is the short answer.

Michael
 
oldoc said:
I had one set last year, but it seemed prideful, and I backed off...
Just my two cents.
Click to expand...

Pardon me, I'm not speaking of you personally of course.
But I'd like to offer a different view on this prideful notion when it comes to making your own photo book.

First of all, making a *good* photo-book is *not easy*. It takes a while to gather the materials, and then even longer when you start editing it. If you add words or thoughts or essays, double the total time (or more).

Even when you are close to finishing, the numerous small tweaks that you would be tempted to do is never-ending. Small layout changes here, replacing the words there, coming up with a better version of a certain photo, etc.

If you persisted through *all* that, wouldn't it be justified to feel a sense of pride of what you have accomplished? And if that sense of "pride" (the good kind, not the nasty one) is what you projected through the final book, it *will* make a marvellous gift for anyone you care enough to give it to.

So my point is, don't think that making a photobook is easy or pretentious. If done correctly, it will push your limits, and at the end of it, you'd be a better editor than before. And that can only means improvement in your photography.

Just my view on this.
 
Yes, I can agree that making a good picture book is not easy at all.
I spent 6 hours today editing down to 130 pictures - these are vacation pictures, not works of art ! AND, they had already been tweaked for appearance, today was just selecting, scaling for printing and organizing them for a gift book. Then struggling with the online software (YUK !) from a consumer photo lab, and I threw the towel in and downloaded the Blurb software and tomorrow (using my wife's MSWin computer) I will try to start a Blurb book (offline).

This is about 10X harder (or maybe just 10X more confusing) than making a web page filled with thumbnails and popup pictures (which is easy to automate via scripts).

I decided to hold off on my "artistic" work until I get this family / vacation book under my belt for the experience.
 
shadowfox said:
Pardon me, I'm not speaking of you personally of course.
But I'd like to offer a different view on this prideful notion when it comes to making your own photo book.

First of all, making a *good* photo-book is *not easy*. It takes a while to gather the materials, and then even longer when you start editing it. If you add words or thoughts or essays, double the total time (or more).

Even when you are close to finishing, the numerous small tweaks that you would be tempted to do is never-ending. Small layout changes here, replacing the words there, coming up with a better version of a certain photo, etc.

If you persisted through *all* that, wouldn't it be justified to feel a sense of pride of what you have accomplished? And if that sense of "pride" (the good kind, not the nasty one) is what you projected through the final book, it *will* make a marvellous gift for anyone you care enough to give it to.

So my point is, don't think that making a photobook is easy or pretentious. If done correctly, it will push your limits, and at the end of it, you'd be a better editor than before. And that can only means improvement in your photography.

Just my view on this.
Click to expand...


Point well-taken.
You'd note I didn't say it was easy. The assumption for me was that other would appreciate or value the gift, especially if given by family or friend. Maybe that was the issue. I am not condemning anyone doing so; for myself, I just felt a little presumptuous. Maybe the value of the gift is related to the quality of the images...
Some day, maybe, the product will be better...
 
Go for it! I don't have the quantity of work for doing that so I tend to just give framed pictures of the people themselves.

As this thread unfolded, I had printed and framed a couple of photos to give to friends.
One to a friend as a 8x6". He's got displayed at home just a photo of when he was little.
The other is 8x12" for a family we are friends of.

A few weeks ago I gave another friend a couple of loose prints. Turns out that a few days later he booked a photo session. Perhaps I sparkled hs mind up. He is an aspiring actor so perhaps he will need some pictures for his portfolio.

Also, snapshooters tend to print less and less. It can be surprising for them, at least the first time.
 
daveleo said:
...I threw the towel in and downloaded the Blurb software and tomorrow (using my wife's MSWin computer) I will try to start a Blurb book (offline).

This is about 10X harder (or maybe just 10X more confusing) than making a web page filled with thumbnails and popup pictures (which is easy to automate via scripts).
...
Click to expand...

You might consider using Lightroom to produce the Blurb book.

There are some LR tutorials on this page that cover using the book module (scroll down to the book section).

Books can take a lot of work. I recently finished producing a 144p coffee table book with around 150 images. It was a group project with others doing a lot of the "design" work. The photographer (my employer) choose the images, a writer produced the small amount of copy, an two other designers did most of the page layout decisions. I was left with the typesetting, actual layout in InDesign, color management, and all of the image manipulation (resizing, cropping, ...). It required a lot of work over several months.

By comparison, using LR and its selection of "stock" layout options is very straight forward. There are still a lot of things to deal with, but managing the layout, page order, images, ... is rather easy. Check out the videos at Adobe TV.
 
Getting a few of these printed out for a limited edition sale.

Will be giving one to a friend. 12*12


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