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Rangefinder Magazine
February 2004

Wedding Album Overview by Bob Coates

Bob Coates. Storyteller wedding books are printed by Creative Type in Dallas, Texas. Photos of these albums just can’t do them justice—they have a very tactile feel with soft, manufactured leather and textured pages.

Options for wedding album design have moved to the new millennium. For many years there were traditional albums that were slip-in pages with the number of 8x10s determining the amount of creativity and packaging available to the bride. On some levels, depending on the budget of your clientele, this is still an option. The next level is the mixing of mounted prints of different sizes and shapes throughout the album, utilizing different mats, still in a more traditional format. These can be simple creations with the viewer being able to predict, while turning the page, what the next will look like. Or, they can be intricate designs with each turn of the page highlighting another layout, from a full panorama crossing the entire field of vision, to a postage stamp-sized image being the only image in a two-page spread, making the viewer really look carefully to catch the detail.

A relatively new style of wedding album has begun to sweep the industry and is known as the magazine style. Starting in Australia, this new way of presenting the story with multiple images and design elements on a single page came about with the advent of digital imaging. Martin Schembri and Yervant Zanazanian are at the forefront of this new style.

Joe Buissink. Sepia tone, split tone, and other color enhancements make Joe Buissink’s wedding images come to life.

There are some incredibly talented photographers constantly pushing the envelope of album design. Here are a few to help spark your creativity and even more importantly, your bottom line.

Brian and Judith Shindle utilize the traditional style leather bound book with images mounted in mats on pages that show a wide variety of image treatments. Panoramas, 3/4 panoramas and half panoramas are used to great effect. Brian’s photography is also highlighted utilizing circle, oval and different aspect ratios of rectangles along with squares.

To get their clients excited about buying more images, the Shindles do a wall-sized, projected presentation of their proofs in a “Media Premiere” set to music.

Michael Ayers takes the traditional presentation method and adds his own twists, turns, doors and pop-ups. Ayers’ albums come alive with pages that jump up, fold over and extend beyond the boundaries of just the open book. He creates these from a standard album and adds his magical touches in an operating-room-style area in his studio. It’s a dramatic presentation that draws the viewer into the album.

Michael Ayers. In this layered stand-up album, the bridal party seems to emerge from the altar of the church as the spread is opened. It’s a dramatic presentation that draws viewers into the album.

Utilizing multiple images from the same scene or treating the same image in a variety of ways, Martin Schembri tells the story of the wedding day in a very graphic modern fashion. Some of his layouts seem to have been pulled from the pages of a fashion magazine. The collage-style pages are presented in a magazine album that takes four to six weeks to turnaround. Yervant uses a similar technique, but you’ll see that his books have a very different look and feel than Martin’s.

The stunning photography of Joe Buissink is highlighted in traditional albums, but he also utilizes a box presentation with his images elegantly museum-mounted and matted individually. This allows each individual image to stand on its own as a piece of art.

At the forefront of the wedding business for many years, Ken Sklute offers a complete variety of album types for his clients. From elegant, leather-bound, traditional albums to fine art albums with only one art print on a two-page spread and now to the magazine style, Ken is always exploring new ways to package images for his brides.

Lookig for a way to get his images into the bride’s hands in a very short period of time led Carlos Lozano to design a “Behind the Scenes” album. It consists of 3.5x5-inch sloppy border, sepia-toned images mounted artistically onto plain pages. The use of torn edges, art paper and some selective hand toning really make it jump. Carlos can have this album in the bride’s hands at the first meeting just a few weeks after the wedding. While the regular album is being printed and bound, the bride has a finished album to show.

Jennifer and Charles Maring have taken digital imaging to another level. As soon as the wedding is complete, Charles begins the design of the album. Utilizing Photoshop to its maximum, he tweaks and retouches every image that is going to be used in the album. Their images end up with a polished look normally only found in big production magazine ads.

Another approach is to design a book printed on a four-color press. Images are converted to CMYK files, printed on 80# textured cover stock and hand bound in glove soft manufactured leather. These albums have 100–120 images over 40 pages (80 sides). This is how I create my high-end albums. It’s a great way to tell the wedding day story getting a large number of images in a relatively small amount of space.

The wedding album that you ultimately sell to your bride and groom very much depends on the first steps you take in marketing—not the least of which is the samples you have on hand to show the bride. People won’t buy what they can’t see. As Ken Sklute says, “I tend to show big fatties with lots of images because that’s what I want to sell.” Other factors include how you talk to the bride, shoot the wedding, and present the proofs. No matter what albums you provide to your client, remember the choice of album presentation is only a small part. Your photography has to stand out as well. A great philosophy to use in your business is provided by Michael Ayers: “There is no ‘good,’ ‘better,’ or ‘best.’ If my clients choose the bottom of the pricing scale, they still get the best photography we can offer.”

These are just some of the photographers and many moneymaking ideas from the book Photographers Guide to Wedding Album Design and Sales published by Amherst Media.

When Amherst Media first asked me if I would like to write a book, this was the first idea that jumped into my head. Finding the information on creative wedding albums and suppliers took me years of combing through trade show booths, attending programs and seminars, and watching what my peers were doing at the local print competition level. Join me in thanking the photographers who so willingly shared their thoughts and ideas on print presentation and wedding album design creativity. These ideas should spark another wave of possibilities for our clients as we build on the foundation laid down by those who open our eyes because they see things from a different perspective.

Bob Coates is an award-winning photographer based in Sedona, Arizona. He is the author of the Photographers Guide to Wedding Album Design and Sales. His next book is now at bookstores—Strategies & Techniques for Digital Photographers from Amherst Media. Bob speaks nationally on a number of subjects. View Bob’s work at www.bcweddingphoto.com or www.bcphotography.com/.