How To Make A Street Photography Photo Book

I made my first photo book this year. Here’s how you can make yours too.

In January 2022, my colleague Veikka and I did a paid collaboration with the Finnish photography equipment store, Fotonordic. We traveled to New York City for a week to shoot the streets and made a video of the trip.

At some point during the week, the idea of ​​making a photo book arose. We figured it would be great to document the trip in a physical form. I mean, how wonderful it would be if we could browse the pictures and go back to the memories at any time!

I had never made a photo book before, so I immediately got excited about the idea.

Making A Photo Book With ifolor Designer

We chose ifolor as our service provider. I’ve seen ifolor’s prints before, and they have been of high quality. Ifolor also has a great photo book design app called ifolor Designer, where you can create the book yourself.

(The less I need to spend my time in Adobe InDesign, the better.)

I made my book with ifolor Designer (click to enlarge).

Ifolor Designer’s UI is easy to use, and I got the whole book done during the trip and on the way home. You can add photos and text, choose fonts, number of pages, colors, textures, paper quality, etc.

The single 72-page hardcover book costs $70. With a campaign discount, three books ended at $218.50 (shipping included).

Who Is Your Photo Book For?

While designing the photo book, I recommend you consider who the book is for. Is it meant to be private or something you intend to share?

I ended up with a personal POV — images are in chronological order, illustrating our own experience of the trip. But I also wanted the book to be something that could be handed over to the guests.

I wrote three little articles into the book: One describing why we were traveling in New York City in the first place. Second to explain what is so special about street photography. And third, why I love cities so much.

How Did the Book Turn Out?

It took two weeks for the books to arrive. 72 pages looks a lot thinner than I expected, but the book is of excellent quality!

Images are sharp, colors look great. If I have to say something critical, it’s about the paper quality. I ordered a matte book, but it’s still way more glossy than I hoped. Still, I would say ifolor did a great job.

I, myself, made one grave mistake, however. I misspelled the title at the back of the book! What a stupid thing!

You see, in the app, you can’t preview the book in actual size, so it’s sometimes hard to read the tiny font. Yes, everybody knows that you should always write elsewhere and copy and paste text in a situation like this, which I, of course, didn’t do.

So, the book is now titled New York | Street Phptography, 2022.

Great.

Don’t repeat my mistakes, and always double-check your spelling! Mistakes often happen in the most apparent parts of the work.

Now, Go Make Your Own Book

I highly recommend any photographer to create a photo book! It’s incredible to see your work printed out in pages.

Make it for yourself, make for the guests, make it as a gift, make it for the memories.