georgevedwards Loc: Essex, Maryland.

I have been delving into portrait photography and have run into requests for Albums. I remember when you took the individual photos and manually by hand placed them on the pages of a book, with the corner squares, (really ancient), or with the transparent plastic that lifts up and you arrange the photos...good for samples but does not seem sellable and does not seem to look professional. What do most portrait photographers do nowadays? I see lots of online sites that will print a hardcover book with a few as 10 or 20 photos for a reasonable price. I would like to hear from some who have experience in doing this...a client wants to do some modeling headshots and wants the option of an album.

EstherP

Our wedding album, now almost 45 years old, has the photos slipped into some sort of plastic pockets and inside a card frame. After all these years, it still looks very nice.
I would not ever use the pages whose covers lift up to arrange the photos. Photos get stuck to the pages, the liftable part helps to bleach the photos...
I would suggest a trip to a scrapbooking shop, tell the staff what you would like to do, and let them show you some of their albums and give suggestions.
Or indeed, use a place like Blurb or Shutterfly and have a "proper book" printed.
EstherP

georgevedwards Loc: Essex, Maryland.

Yes, I am offering a customer an 8.5x11 photo book by Mixbook, they seem reasonable and looks like what the other sites are offering. This seems to be the contemporary solution, I don't have the time to sit and cut and paste an album by hand these days. I was just wondering what the experienced pros here are offering their customers, and especially what customers expect nowadays. I am getting requests for "ability to purchase prints online", which I am thinking means a 3rd party source where you upload a batch of photos and the customer chooses some and the online company sends them out, all done automatically pretty much. Similar to fineartamerica.com, where you upload your images, people browse and can order prints, canvas, etc., the company prints and sends, gets their cut and you get a check in the mail; but they are more geared to the artistic original images market. I know there are sites that will take your photos and produce a very fancy album for several hundred dollars, which is what high end wedding customers expect, but right now I am thinking of your entry level portrait customer.

BHC Loc: Strawberry Valley, JF, USA

For many years now, I have used Light Impressions PhotoGuard binder storage pages. I have one portfolio that has had 8X10 prints in it for at least ten years. The photos have not faded, due in part that when the portfolio is closed, the container is light-tight, but also because the pages are polypropylene, acid free (balanced pH) and provide UV protection. One package I have is so old, there is no URL on it and the UPC is a simplex code. I just discovered that the package was not resealed when last used, but the pages are still in perfect condition. The package of 25 pages cost me $11.95 years ago. Now they are $17.55 direct from:

http://www.lightimpressionsdirect.com/

I have a couple of packages of storage sleeves I use occasionally; I'll post the manufacturer as soon as I can find them. I used my last 14 X 20 several years ago.

georgevedwards Loc: Essex, Maryland.

Yes, I have heard of Light Impressions as a good source for seriously archiving photos. I know of serious photographers who would use nothing less than archival quality. I did think that route was usually expensive, and using individual sleeves time consuming. But what does your average customer like or be willing to pay for? I worked in a frame shop and they sort of put themselves out of business by using too much archival materials for art. Now I agree and believe art and photography should be preserved, and would recommend the UV glass for anything on paper, but most customers just do not want to pay $30 for a piece of museum glass, acid free mats etc. By the time the framing consultant got through, even a small image could run you several hundred dollars. The shop went out of business. As did many others. What are photographers selling nowadays when a portrait photo job lead for a customer says the prospective customer wants 'physical prints'; 'physical proofs'; online proofs; able to purchase prints online; or 'album'(what do they mean by album? Probably not usually the $+hundreds wedding album). Do other photographers use the online photo book makers, or do they print their own and assemble their own albums page by page?