Every Story is a Love Story

Speaking of love, we’d like to introduce you to a pair of books we are, well, in love with right now. Both were discovered during our recent My Favorite Person contest. Hundreds of books were submitted and, while they were all inspiring—and many of them tugged pretty hard on our heartstrings, we managed to choose our absolute favorites. Let them inspire you to make your own (and we’ll even tell you how you can design your own book online and on your desktop).

The first book we want to share stands out not just for the photography of a couple who are obviously crazy about each other, but for its innovative format—a flipbook. Read on to see how Marta Caeiro dazzled her husband with a book that showcases their relationship in an almost cinematic fashion.

Please tell us a bit about yourself.
My Name is Marta Caeiro, I am 35 years old and I am Portuguese. I love to travel, I love photography, and I am passionate about urban art.

What’s the story behind your book?
Since I was pretty young I have loved flipbooks, so my idea was to make The Movie Book with my favorite person in the whole world: Carlos. We have been together for 10 years, he was my colleague that became my friend, then my boyfriend—and now he is my husband. So this book is a celebration of our love.

What made the book special to you?
This book is very special because it is a statement of love that combines many things that I adore: My husband, photography, drawing, illustration, and flipbooks. I’ve been a Blurb fan since 2007, and have done many books for friends as gifts, as memories of my trips, and for special moments like my wedding album. But this one I did with my
husband—and whatever I do with him, I do it with all my heart, so this one is really special.

Let’s talk details—how did you start making your book? What was the planning process like?
Our friend Filipe took hundreds of photos of us doing the drawing of “I love you baby.” I selected the best ones and tried to re-create the movement of a movie by doing a kind of time lapse. My husband did the illustrations that I used in the covers and the heartbeat—and voilà.

Which format did you pick?
The smaller format was the best one for the purpose of this book.

How long did it take you to put together your book?
One week.

Were you happy with your finished product?
Really happy, the hardcover is great and the print quality is fantastic.

What advice would you give to someone who was looking to make his or her own book?
This is a great way to gather memories. I have made more than 20 books with Blurb and I just love to page through my oldies from time to time. It is a great present to offer because you feel that it was made by you and made with a lot of love.

What’s your favorite part of your book?
I love the covers. And I really love the one photo where I am painting the hair of my husband with white chalk, just kidding around because his hair is white.

Any plans for more books?
For sure! Every trip that we take I do a book… If life is like a book, ours is still on Volume I and the best part is yet to be written.

And now we come to a book that really puts quality photography front and center. It’s a collection of photos taken in the 1960s of a single subject—a beautiful woman—taken by a photographer who is clearly in love with the person on the other side of the lens.

Portraits of Sonya | David Newell-Smith

Please tell us a bit about yourselves.
In the 1960s & 70s we both had successful careers as photojournalists, working with the Observer and Sunday Telegraph. In 1978, we developed our interest in art and antiques and formed Tadema Gallery in Islington, specialising in 20th century abstract art and artist-designed jewelry from 1860 to 1960. We have exhibited widely in art and antique fairs. Over the last three years we have returned to our passion for street photography. Our major project at present is our series on Brick Lane, in the East End. The books show different aspects of street life in several volumes.

What’s the story behind your book?
23rd June 2014 was our 50th wedding anniversary. To celebrate this event, we made three books recording our life together.

What made the book special to you?
These are romantic memories of our early relationship and they give us great pleasure.

Let’s talk details—how did you start making your book? What was the planning process like?
David photographed the large black and white prints he had made in the 1960s and I edited them in Photoshop.

Which format and paper type did you pick?
We chose the Large Square format with ProLine Pearl paper.

How long did it take you to put together your book?
Once we had chosen the images, it took one day to put the book together.

Were you happy with your finished product?
We were delighted with the finished product.

What advice would you give to someone who was looking to make his or her own book?
We believe that passion, belief in your project, and creativity are the most important elements in book creation

What’s your favorite part of your book?
Our favourite part is the front cover, which was illustrated in the British Journal of Photography 1966 p.128, David Newell-Smith—“The pretty girl in Regent’s Park, one autumn day became the photographer’s wife.”

Any plans for more books?
We have many plans for our street photography books and wish there were more hours in the day! Also planned is a series on Tadema Gallery Art Nouveau Jewelry. Thank you—we love Blurb with its easy-to-use tools and perfect professional results, which we believe cannot be bettered.

If you want to make your own book of your love story, it couldn’t be simpler. You can either use one of our online photo book tools and get started with a simple mix of photos and captions, or you can download BookWright, our easy-to-use book-making program, and make your book something special⎯just like Marta, Sonya, and David did. Here are some tips to get you started.

• Decide what kind of tone your love story has—is it funny, romantic, realistic?
• Choose your format and the relative amount of photos and text. From pure photo books to narrative stories of your relationship, you’ve got a lot of options.
• Gather your material. You’ll almost definitely need photos, so collect them from your hard drive and your phone and schedule in time to scan physical, printed photographs.
• Name your files carefully. Taking a few minutes to give each of your photo files an understandable name (as opposed to 232_wdg_4343.jpg or the like) will save you a ton of time in the end.
• Fire up your computer and get started!
  1. Create your folders
  2. Select your tool
  3. Import your pictures
  4. Create your layouts
  5. Add photo captions or other text
  6. Preview and proofread
  7. Order your book!

Get Started Now