First up, our Storybooks. Pictured here is the modern artbook; these are available in square, vertical or horizontal formats. The two pictured are vertical and around A4 size. They contain almost your complete portrait collection, and are printed on beautiful satin or matte, thick, magazine style pages that lay completely flat. They have hardcovers, bound in gorgeous, textured, linen fabric with a choice of colours. There is no particular advantage to either square, vertical or horizontal, it’s just a personal preference; what feels good in your hands, what works best on your shelves or drawers. Images can be laid out just as beautifully in all three formats.

We chose the sand/green cover for the autumn-themed book as it suited the colour scheme so perfectly. I incorporated some texture and vintage photo edges into the design to give it a whimsical feel that complemented the overall look and feel of the session. The blue cover was the perfect choice for the second book because of the beach setting. The design for that book is clean, simple and modern with lots of white space.

I really love designing books for my clients. They tell a story, and reveal the personalities of each family member and their relationships with each other. One of my favourite things about Storybooks is that you can lay out a sequence of images together on one page or across a double-page spread, and it can be so much more meaningful than having to choose one image out of the sequence to frame or gift! Often a portrait collection contains up to 40 images, and this is a way you can have them all, bound into a beautiful keepsake.

So, I understand the drop in bookings during winter, particularly outdoors ones. And to be honest, I don’t mind a bit of hibernation time myself. However, babies continue to be conceived and born regardless of the temperature outdoors, and as I approach the third birthday of my son – my very own smack-bang-in-the-middle-of-winter-baby – I thought it might be a nice time to show you my most popular product for new parents…

…the Heartstory Digital Collection…

This double box luxury set holds two DVDs, one containing your maternity collection and the other containing your newborn collection, together with a 5×7.5″ print of every single image in both collections. For most maternity/newborn combos, this is between 50 and 70 prints.

I know why it’s such a popular choice for my beautiful maternity and newborn clients. Because they can’t bear the thought of parting with any of the images in their galleries – they want to keep all of them!  This is why I love doing maternity and newborn combinations so much – to be a part of such a special time in a family’s life is an absolute honour, a privilege and a joy. Maternity and newborn collections hold the most precious, dear memories and moments that can never be repeated.  In many ways it is far more momentous and life changing than getting married, and that is why I take the responsibility of photographing it extremely seriously. Heartstory digital collections are a luxury product and presented as such. Purchasing yours gives you unlimited access to print, share and forever treasure your images. You can make albums and other keepsakes, you can make gift prints for family members and friends, you can make a slideshow to be shown at a special event, the possibilities are endless.

Heartstory currently offers a complimentary maternity session with every newborn session booked. So there really is no excuse to miss out on the chance to be photographed while you’re pregnant, especially if it’s your first or last pregnancy! Please get in touch (0402 091 949 or katie@heartstoryphotography.com.au) to find out more about maternity/newborn sessions, or hop on over to the Heartstory website.

In completely unrelated news, Heartstory will be at Mathilda’s Market in Canberra on September 12! I am super excited about this and I hope to see some of you there!

I’ve made a few more handmade photobooks for clients over the past few months, and I thought you might like to see them, so here they are!

Above: Back in September, a friend of a client contacted me to commission this custom designed, handmade album for my client’s son’s christening. She asked for it to have a Morrocan inspired look to match her friend’s taste in colour and design. I was really happy with how it came out. She loved it so much she couldn’t wait until the christening and gave it to them that weekend! It’s an accordian style album with ten 4×6 prints, a hand printed title on the cover and a little card in a pocket on the inside. It fastens with a length of suede, decorated with ceramic beads.

Above: These are my standard 8 x 8, 15 page, custom handmade photobooks. They include a meaningful arrangement of 4×6 and 5×7 prints as well as several smaller prints to enhance the narrative of the books. I made them for a client last month. She specifically asked for no ribbons or fancy bits as she will be giving these to her twin boys when they’re older.  I think that’s such a lovely idea!

Above: This is another of my standard 8 x 8, 15 page, custom handmade photobooks. This one is a little bit different in that it’s bound with cloth and fastens with elastic. I have to say I like this one the most out of all the books I’ve made for clients. It’s simple, practical and classy.

You can read more about katbooks if you’re interested.

This has been on my mind for some time, hence I’ve been plotting and planning what I think is a pretty special idea.

Do you want a photobook that looks exactly like everyone else’s? Or would you prefer a unique, handmade, photobook made especially for you?

I’m so excited to finally be sharing this with you: yippee!

Meet my very first katbook…

katbooks are designed to last a lifetime and are made with archival quality, acid free materials. Covers are made from fine quality museum board or mat board with custom designed and handprinted titles.  Paper is fine quality medium weight (200-250gsm) textured paper such as Canson Mi-Teintes or Daler Rowney.  Photographs are printed at a professional lab and affixed by hand to each page. 

The katbook pictured is saddle stitched for maximum durability and features unbleached cotton ties and a protective flap. It measures 8 x 8 inches and includes seven 5 x 7 photographs, eight 4 x 6 photographs and six wallet sized photographs.

My plan is to design a small range of katbook styles to be available to my photography clients. There will be a variety of cover and paper colours available for each style so clients will be able to choose a look to suit their taste, while leaving the hard stuff to me.

I would also like to market katbooks to professional portrait photographers as an additional product/service they can provide their clients.  If you’re interested in this service, I can create a unique katbook style just for your business, which you can use that each time you place an order, and you need only provide me with your prints and photobook layout. Alternately, you could choose from the same selection of books I offer my clients. If you’re a professional photographer in Australia and you like the sound of this, please let me know.  My email is kat.words at gmail dot com.

Further to this, I’m considering the possibility of providing a photobook service for anyone who wants their own photographs to be made into a katbook. It will probably take me some time before I’ve figured out the ins and outs of how to do this, so if you have any suggestions or feedback on this idea, I would love to hear it.  

Bookbinding is an age old craft. Handmade books are beautiful and unique, but can also be extremely time intensive to make, and therefore expensive, inaccessible and underappreciated.  I have always loved books and began learning the craft of bookbinding in my final year of highschool. For a short time in my early 20s, I worked as a freelance binder for artists, providing custom made sketchbooks, portfolio boxes and presentation solutions.

It was something I loved very much, but after a time I found that it didn’t provide me with enough mental stimulation to become a full time career, so I gave it up. Ever since, it’s only been an occasional hobby, mostly driven by my desperation to do something with the boxes of printed photographs in my cupboards, and my artist father, who has me make him a huge, thick guardbook (sort of like an expandable album, but saddle stitched) every so often to store his drawings in.

I’m thrilled to be making books again, and combining my biggest love, photography, with a skill I’ve known for nearly half my life. It’s almost as if it’s been lying dormant, just waiting for me to stumble upon this idea.

Feedback on this post would be appreciated very much.