Earlier this year some of these unique books were the centre of
attention at Photobook Melbourne, Australia’s first international
photo book festival, for which Momento Pro was a major sponsor.
Pro photographers like Stephen Dupont are using Momento Pro
to create editions of just five photobooks (along with two artist’s
proofs) which are usually sold almost immediately to institutions
and collectors in Australia and overseas.
Among some of Australia and New Zealand’s best wedding and
portrait photographers, there is another book product you’ll hear
mentioned – Asuka Books. Up until recent times most professional
wedding and portrait photographers would order prints from the
lab (or make ink-jet prints), and then tape the photos into large,
leather bound albums. The completed albums looked beautiful,
but they were also time consuming and expensive to make.
Asuka Books has, in essence, replaced the traditional wedding
albums, and the advantage to both the photographer and clients
are that the images are printed seamlessly into the albums
using the digital offset printing processes. The big difference
between the on-demand book that you can buy from Apple or
Officeworks, and Asuka books, is the presentation. Asuka books
are printed onto high-quality paper stocks and then a gloss, matte
or varnish finish is applied to the pages. The images not only
leap off the page, they also make the photographer look rather
special. The books are bound using high-quality finishes and
presented in matching boxes. If you can ever remember seeing
your first professionally presented leather wedding album, the
experience of looking at an Asuka book is on par, if not better.
Not everyone can order Asuka books. You do need to be a
professional photographer with an ABN, but if you’re looking
at bringing a more personal touch to your wedding and portrait
clients, Asuka know how.
The personal photo website
Most of us are familiar with posting our photos onto a website,
but what many photographers don’t realise is just how easy it is to
buy your own domain name and have your own website. These
days a ‘.com.au’ domain name can cost you as little as $19 and
a .com can cost as little as $7. Numerous photographers (myself
included) have their own name with a ‘.com.au’ at the end of it.
This not only makes it easy for people to find you by name, but it
makes it easy to remember your email address too. Of course, the
next step is to then set up a website to link to this domain name.
Several years ago this was a problem for most of us.
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“What many photographers don’t realise is
just how easy it is to buy your own domain
name and have your own website.”
PERSONAL PHOTOBOOKS & WEBSITES