How to pick pictures for a photo book

Picking your favorite pictures for a photo book or album can be a blast – but also quite overwhelming! Photo books are a great way to showcase pictures from a documentary baby or family session, and there are a few things I like to keep in mind when I put them together.

The photo book cover picture

Ah the cover picture – it can feel hard to pick just one photo! Some ideas for how to choose:

a photo that shows everyone who was present
a photo that represents the overall feel of the day
a photo that shows the “main star” of the event

Listen to your gut

As you’re going through a batch of photos, pick the photos that make you feel something – that just create that extra special feeling as they pop up on your screen.

Add to the story

Once you have the photos that really move you, you can go back and see where you might want to fill in some gaps or add in additional details.

For example, if you picked a few photos from breakfast and from a family outing, maybe you have a picture or two in the middle of how you prepared to head out or wrangled everything into the car?

If you’ve got pictures of your new baby nursing, maybe you also want to include some pictures of smaller details or the environment.

Include yourself

It is so tempting to fill up the book with pictures of your kids and your partner, because they are your biggest treasures. But these photo books will one day be in your kiddos' grown up home, and they'll want pictures of you in there, too.