A trip produces hundreds of photos and, often, very little story. Back home, the camera roll is full of landmarks and empty of the moments that made the trip feel like yours.
The clip below is what we put on while sorting. It runs long enough to get through a month of photos.
Keep it simple
Think of each day as a short chapter. A beginning, something in the middle, and an ending.
The people you travelled with matter more than the places. Make sure they are in the pictures.
- Leave the cover for last
- Star photos as you take them
- Write a few words beside the best ones
What we got wrong
Most people find the first month the hardest. You are learning what you like, and every photo feels important. By the third month you will notice yourself moving faster, trusting your first reaction and spending your time on the handful of close calls instead of on every single picture.
Do not wait for a special occasion. The ordinary weeks are the ones people forget, and the ones they most want to see again.
Picking is a skill. Like any skill, it gets faster.
Priya Nair, Paperleaf print room
Make it a habit
If two photos are nearly the same, keep the one where someone is doing something. A raised hand, a turned head or a half-finished sentence gives a picture life that a perfectly still pose rarely has, even when the still one is technically better.
If you share a camera roll with someone, agree on who picks which month. Taking turns means each book has a slightly different point of view, and nobody ends up doing all of the work every time.
Good to know: every Paperleaf book has room for thirty photos, so there is no prize for keeping more.
Start with what you already have
Keep the rejected photos somewhere safe for a while. Tastes change, and a picture you passed over may be the one you want next year.
A good caption answers the question someone will ask in twenty years. Who is that? Where were we? Why is everyone wet? Write the answer while you still know it, even if it feels too obvious to bother with today.
- Keep one photo per day at most
- Back up before deleting anything
- Hand the camera to someone else
When to stop
Take one photo before the moment and one after. The before and after often say more than the moment itself.
Share the book when it arrives. Leaving it on the kitchen table for a day is often enough for everyone to have a look.
Picking is a skill. Like any skill, it gets faster.
Priya Nair, Paperleaf print room
Why it works
Keep the phone charged and the lens clean on days you expect to matter. It sounds small, but a flat battery or a smudged lens has cost more good pictures than any missing piece of equipment.
Try not to edit every photo. A little brightening is fine, but heavy filters date quickly and make a year of books look uneven when they sit together on a shelf. Let the light of the day show.
Good to know: every Paperleaf book has room for thirty photos, so there is no prize for keeping more.
One more thing
Set aside a fixed time for it. The last Sunday of the month works for a lot of readers because the week is quiet and the month is complete.
Make a cup of tea, sit somewhere comfortable and put the phone on do-not-disturb. The job goes faster when it does not compete with messages.
- Include at least one place, not just faces
- Hand the camera to someone else
- Leave the cover for last
A few small rules
Be generous on the first pass. You are not deciding what goes in the book yet, only what is definitely out.
Ask someone else to look at your shortlist. They will spot the photo you were about to drop and the one you only kept out of habit.
The book comes, and for one evening nobody looks at their phone.
Marcus, father of three
Try it this month
Faces matter, but so do places. Include at least one picture of the room, the street or the view where the month happened.
On the second pass, look for variety. A month of the same room and the same faces feels flat, even if each photo is lovely on its own.
Good to know: every Paperleaf book has room for thirty photos, so there is no prize for keeping more.
What to look for
Back up before you delete anything. It takes a minute and removes the fear that stops people from clearing out at all.
Do not forget the in-between moments: the car park before the party, the coats piled on a chair, the walk home in the dark. They are the parts of a day that nobody photographs on purpose and everybody recognises straight away.
- Include at least one place, not just faces
- Leave the cover for last
- Pick a fixed day each month
Keep it simple
When a month has a big event in it, such as a wedding or a first day at school, let it take over. There is no rule that says every week needs equal space. The book should feel like the month felt.
Keep a note of what happened that month as you go. A few words beside a photo are worth far more than you expect a year later.
Picking is a skill. Like any skill, it gets faster.
Priya Nair, Paperleaf print room
Thank you for not telling me to buy a new camera.
I printed our first book after reading this and my daughter has not put it down since.
Does this work for older kids too? Mine are 11 and 14 and hide from the camera.
The bit about writing names on the back hit home. We have a box of strangers in our loft.
Does this work for older kids too? Mine are 11 and 14 and hide from the camera.
We tried the one-photo-per-day rule last month and it made picking so much easier. Thank you!
I printed our first book after reading this and my daughter has not put it down since.