Win a £50 Fortnum & Mason Gift Card...

All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.

- Oscar Wilde

In celebration of those wonderful mothers, we have four £50 Fortnum & Mason Gift Cards to give away, so you can make your mum feel extra special this Mothering Sunday (18th March).

To be in with a chance to win, simply comment on this post below telling us why you love your mum.

You can also enter via facebook.  First ‘like’ the Bob Books facebook page and then comment on our wall telling us why you love your mum.

The Fortnum’s gift card can be used online, over the telephone or in their Piccadilly store. Just make sure that you spend it on your mum!

Post your entry by 13th March 2012.

Please note:  Our photobook order dates for UK Mother’s Day deliveries are 4th March for photographic large landscape, large portrait books and small landscape hardback books and 11th March for all other photobooks.

Competition rules:

Please read the competition rules (terms and conditions) before entering.

• By entering this competition you are agreeing to these terms. 
• A total of 4 winning entries will be selected.
• Entry comments should be between 3 - 50 words.
• The competition is open to all UK residents over the age of 18.
• The competition closing date for entries is midnight March 13th, 2011.
• In the event of unforeseen circumstances, the Bob Books reserves the right at any time to cancel, modify or supersede the competition (including altering prizes) if, in their sole discretion, a competition is not capable of being conducted as specified.
• All prizes are non transferable and there are no cash alternatives.
• Bob Books regret that only winning entries will be acknowledged personally.
• Paid employees of Bob Books are excluded from entering.
• The judges’ decision is final; no correspondence will be entered into.
• Blog winning entries will be contacted via email on 14th March, so be sure to include your email in the "Author email field" when posting your comment.  Email addresses will not be shared or made public.
• Facebook winning entries will be announced on our facebook page on 14th March.

Good Luck and Have fun!

Year One Project - episode 1

© Julia Boggio Studios

In 2011, I gave birth to my first child. After three years of trying to conceive, she finally burst into this world to The Sound of Music soundtrack and has been singing for us ever since (well, with crying and yelling mixed in).

Towards the end of my pregnancy, the prospect of becoming a parent made me intensely curious about my own beginnings. I started quizzing my parents about my birth and my milestones. What was my mother’s birth plan? Response: What’s a birth plan? (Apparently, it wasn’t a big thing in the Seventies.) Other questions included: was I breastfed? When did I roll over? When did I start crawling? What was my favourite toy?

Let’s just say that, if you were in a pub quiz and one of the rounds was about me, you wouldn’t want my parents on your team. They couldn’t remember my first word!

So that’s how my Year One project was born. The objective: to make a book for my daughter starting with her birth story and ending with her first birthday party and everything in between.

The great thing is that we’re a long way from the Seventies, where paper scrapbooks and photo albums with sticky sleeves were the norm. In my case, the ravages of time and having divorced parents mean that the family photo albums of my youth have been dismantled, distributed, and some of the photographs have been lost. Now, we have the luxury of living in the digital age and the opportunity to make professional-grade photo books. And the best thing is that we can print as many copies as we want. I’ll be printing loads and flinging them to the four corners of the earth to make sure there is always a copy for her should she lose the one I give her.

During the past eight months, I have been taking many, many photographs of Baby; she’s going to have a bigger portfolio than Kate Moss by age 1. I’ve also been writing about my journey as a mother on my blog, www.icarriedawatermelon.co.uk, which will provide some good copy for the book. However, putting together a book of the scope that I am imagining needs a lot of content and, of course, good design.   

Over the course of this year, I’ll be sharing with you my progress with The Year One Project. Hopefully, it will give you some ideas about things you can include in your own family photo books, like photo shoot projects and written exercises, to help make your book just that little bit more of a family heirloom. Also, I’ll share our design thoughts and give you some tips for designing your own book.

I’m really looking forward to going on this journey with you.

Julia Boggio owns one of Britain’s most famous wedding and portrait studios, www.juliaboggiostudios.com, along with her husband, James. She is a regular columnist for Photo Professional magazine and her work has appeared in a number of publications, including The Times Style Magazine, You & Your Wedding, Condé Nast Brides, and The British Journal of Photography. James and Julia are also renowned for doing the dance from Dirty Dancing at their wedding, the video of which has had almost ten million hits on You Tube and landed them on The Oprah Winfrey Show, where Julia danced with Patrick Swayze. Her mummy blog, www.icarriedawatermelon.co.uk, tells the story of what happened next.

Ask with Bob...

In honour of Valentine's Day we wanted to share with you a lovely story we heard from one of our customers.  We talked to Paul Smith who proposed to his girlfriend with his Bob Book.

What inspired you to propose with a photo book?
Everyone wants a "special" way of proposing and due to having a new baby I couldn't simply whisk her away for a weekend in Paris or New York. I started thinking about alternative options and stumbled across the idea of creating a photo book. I loved the idea and it seemed like a great way of showing how I felt.
 

Can you tell us a bit more about your book?
My book is called "So far…" and charts the story of our relationship through photos. It shows pictures of us through our time together and special images of the places that we've been. It leads up to the birth of our daughter and shows pictures of the day she was born. It then says "So, what's next?" followed by "Will you marry me?" on the last page.

So, how did you go about proposing?
I took her down to a nice hotel in the New Forest and got the hotel staff to set up their best room with a dozen red roses, a bottle of champagne and they even dressed it with their wedding decorations. As we walked in I gave her the book and as she reached the last page I got down on one knee.

And, of course, we all want to know – did she say yes?
After she'd stopped crying, she did!
She loves showing the book to her friends and family and is now very paranoid that she'll lose it. I may have to get a few more printed just in case…!

Congratulations, Paul!  We so pleased that we could play a part in your special day and can't wait to see the wedding book ;-)

Book of the Month - January 2012

Our 2012 Book of the Month competition has kicked off with some outstanding entries. Congratulations to 15-year-old Theo Williams who is our January winner with his portfolio book 2011 Collection.

Here’s what our judge said about Theo’s book;

The book shows a huge body of work, which is both diverse and inventive. Theo’s use of the page is very imaginative and the design complements the photographs. Congratulations for your hard work and for producing such a beautiful book.

And here’s what our young winner had to say;

I've been working on this book for so long, I know i'm only fifteen but i hope it can be taken seriously :)
Massive thanks to bob books though, the software really got me able to lay everything out how I imagined it, way better than any flip file!
I've told some photographer friends of mine about Bob Books as a service, its still weird to think this whole amazing year has come down to 42 pages!

Is your book brilliant? To enter Book of the Month, simply publish your book in our Bob Bookshop and send your book’s URL to competition@bobbooks.co.uk. Full details are available here. Good luck!

Don't forget to cast your vote for Book of the Year 2011.  Voting closes on 29th February, 2012.

We've got that loving feeling...

“You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.”
― Dr. Seuss

Legend has it that on Valentine's Day in a leap year ladies can propose to their Mr Right.  If you are planning to pop the question next week, do let us know how it goes!

But, if you haven't yet sorted out a token of affection for your sweetheart, we have some gorgeous ready made "Kiss" flickbooks available here.  These books are shipped First Class Royal Mail within 24 hours of order.

Don't forget, there's still time for you to enter to win a Vintage Boudoir photo shoot package worth £3000.  Enter here.

And as our Valentines gift to you, you can receive 14% off hardback and photographic paper books until the 14th February, 2012. Simply enter the code LOVEBOB in the voucher field during checkout to receive your discount.*

* The voucher LOVEBOB must be entered during checkout to receive the 14% discount. Offer is not valid on paperback books, Bob Bookshop orders, calendars, flickbooks or gift vouchers and cannot be combined with any other offer. Expires midnight 14th February 2012.

Creating a full page bleed in Bob Designer 3.0

With the Bob Designer software, you have full control over how you would like to design your book.  One simple, but very effective design techniques is to fill your page with one full bleed image.

For those of you new to designing books, you may be unfamiliar with the term "full bleed".  Full bleed is a printing term that refers to printing from one edge of the paper to another without any borders.

In the book above, the left page has a full bleed image while the right page has a black background with the image framed within the page.

During the book production process, the pages are printed onto paper larger than the size of your book and then trimmed to size after printing.  As the pages aren't cut in exactly the same place each time, you'll need to allow for this when designing your book, by bleeding your image past the edge of the page, or you might end up with a small white line along the edge of your pages.  We recommend a 3mm bleed for all inner pages and a 10mm bleed for the cover.

The best way to achieve a full bleed in the Bob Designer software is to set your chosen image as a "background".   This will set the image into the page with a full bleed automatically.  This can be done for the left or right page or across a double page spread.

The option to set your image as a background appears when you right click on the thumbnail.

Or you can simply click on the image thumbnail and then choose from the three background layout options below the thumbnail area.

You can see when you click on the background image that the edges have been extended past the page.  This is indicated by the solid yellow line around the image.

While the background image option works great if you want to fill either one page or a double page spread, you might like to get a little more creative with your layouts.

Our photographic paper books are ideal for creative layouts as you don't lose any image down the gutter.

A great option is to have one large image fill 3/4's of a double page, teamed with a smaller image.

Here's how to design this page.

1.From the pre-set layouts, select the layout below which fills half a page and with bleed on the top and bottom. Drag and drop the layout into the righthand page.

2. Click on the red square on the left side of the image frame and stretch the frame across to fill the left page plus an extra 3mm for bleed.

3. Then drag and drop the image into the frame and add any other images or text to the page.

Why not try this out when you're designing your next Bob Book?

Book of the Year 2011 - Cast your votes

The Bob Books Book of the Year 2011 ballot box is now officially open and it’s your turn to decide which of our Book of the Month winners will be crowned Book of the Year 2011.

To cast your vote simply log in to your account, look through our 12 brilliant nominees and then choose the book that you believe to be worthy of the title.

Thanks to our lovely friends at Olympus we have two fantastic PEN cameras up for grabs this year. The talented winner will receive an Olympus Pen Lite E-PL3 worth £549 and the runner-up will take home the Olympus Pen Mini E-PM1 worth £449.

So don’t forget to cast your vote by 29th February to help decide who will win the Book of the Year 2011 competition.

Why Pinterest could be the network of choice for photographers in 2012

Have you resolved to do more marketing in 2012? Who hasn’t? If you’re one of the lucky few who’s just swimming in bookings this year then count yourself lucky. For most photographers it’s pretty tough out there.

You’re probably tired of hearing it, but we’ve all got to get smarter. Which is why you might like to know about new (ish) social gem, Pinterest. Pinterest isn’t all that new, but it appears it might just be beginning to get traction among photographers.

Why? Well, it’s arguably the best place to indulge your photographic interest since Flickr. Essentially it’s a digital pinboard that lets you ‘pin’ images to your own ‘board’. What else is good about it? Read on…

Save inspiration

One of the great things about Pinterest is you can save images you like by browsing through categories (there are many, including photography, fashion, art, design and so on) and then ‘liking’ or ‘repinning’ images you like. This works exactly like Facebook and Twitter. Better than that you can see the stuff you’ve liked or repined in your profile, making it very easy to find content at a later date. 

Brand yourself

The other great thing about Pinterest is the ability to group content you find into categories. Not everything you like is going to fall into the same category. For instance, if you like sports, wildlife, portrait and music photography, you can pin these to appropriate pinboard, again making it much easier to find at a later date. I find myself using the ‘my style’ pinboard a lot for images that are non-specific, but say a lot about my taste.

Pin It

So what if you see a picture somewhere on the web that you really like and want to save it your pinboard for later? Great news, you can simply add a ‘pin it’ button to your web browser. The app then scoops up all the images on the page and asks you which ones you want to pin. You can add them to appropriate boards right there without having to visit the Pinterest site.

Follow people you know

Currently Pinterest is invite only. Which is any new social network’s strategy for driving up interest – if people have to apply to get in, they want in even more. Send a request, I’ve yet to hear anyone say theirs hasn’t been granted – or find someone you know who already has an account and ask them to send you an invite. An easy way to do this is to go to the ‘find friends’ button and search your Twitter/Facebook.

Happy pinning!

5 marketing tips for photographers, with Steve Gerrard

As well as featuring as a guest speaker on our Photobook Month Tour in September and running successful photography workshops for photographers, Steve Gerrard is one of the UK’s most renowned wedding, portrait and music photographers. Here he shares his tips for pro photographers on getting better at marketing.

Share your work

That should actually be, share your best work. Let’s be honest, we all take some duff pictures. So be sure nobody sees them.  Delete them. Bury them so that nobody sees them. Certainly don’t put them on your website.

Brand yourself

You want people to know what you’re all about, right? They’ll get a lot of that from your images for sure. Especially if you have a unique style. Even more so if you’re known for a certain picture. Everybody seems to associate me with the ‘traffic cone’ picture – that’s great as it’s kind of my calling card. But you also need to consider who your market is. If you’ve identified your market you need to make sure what you say and how your brand looks appeals to that market.

Get social

It sounds like a daft thing to say. But you need to be all over social media. This should take up quite a portion of your time. As you know, marketing is essential to the survival of any photography business and social media is one of the most effective ways to get your work seen. So get started by sharing your pictures on Facebook and Twitter, directing people to your Flickr feed if you need to.

Make books

Of course, this is a blog for a photobook company. But I really do love photobooks. We make them for our clients all the time and they love them. Books are also a great way to market yourself, be it showing off your stuff at a trade show or with a client consultation. You could also leave your books at venues where you might like to shoot – a wedding venue, for instance.

Shoot what you love

Finally, we started a thing called Birmingham Live – which is all about reviewing gigs in the Birmingham area. There’s no money in music photography really – at least not live music photography – so this has to be a labour of love. But people will see your passion because passion usually means good work. Good work travels well through the Internet and will ultimately make sure you’re seen. 

Preview: 5 unmissable UK photography competitions to enter in 2012

So you're planning on going for some photography prizes in 2012? Good for you! Maybe you're planning on entering several competitions. There are many of them to choose from. So which of them simply can't be overlooked? Well, that depends what you're looking for. Are you hoping to get your work seen? Want to be inspired? Want to get some letters after your name? We think we've got the pick of the bunch for you:

Wanderlust Travel Photo of the Year

Where? UK (Amateur and Professional categories)

Now in its 16th year, the Wanderlust Travel Photo of the Year competition is firmly established as the UK’s biggest amateur travel photography competition, attracting more than 5,000 entries annually.  The 2012 competition will be launching this summer.  Details available in Wanderlust Magazine and at http://travelphotocompetition.wanderlust.co.uk/

Red for Heart

Where? London (open to anyone) 

This charity fundraising photo competition run by the British Heart Foundation is now in its third year.  Prizes include some top notch photography gear and experiences. The 2012 competition will open in October.  The winners from the 2011 competition will be announced on the 29^th of Jan in the Independent on Sunday and on the BHF website.

London Festival of Photography

Where? London (open to anyone)

In 2011 this event's theme was street photography and in 2012 it will be street and documentary photography, expanding as the London Festival of Photography. The event will offer photographers the opportunity to win £2,000 and their own show in the street photography category while students can win £1,000 and a group exhibition. The programme will be announced in the new year.

iPhone Photography Awards

Where? Worldwide (open to anyone)

Anyone can enter the iPhone photography awards, including photographers from the UK. Photos must not be edited or optimised using image editing tools like Photoshop, but iPhone/iTouch apps like Hipstamatic are allowed. You simply have to tell them which app you've used though. You must enter by March 31.

Bob Books Book-of-the-Year 2012

Where? London (open to anyone)

This one is a particular favourite.  Entry is free and open to all Bob Books customers.  Once you've created and ordered your book, simply publish your book in the Bob Bookshop with public visibilty and email the book's link to competition@bobbooks.co.uk. Full details here. Monthly winners are selected by our judges, receiving a free Bob Books photobook plus a spot in the Book of the Year competition.  The Book of the Year winner is selected by public voting.  Watch out for the 2011 Book of the Year voting which will commence next week.

Photography by Peter Heilmann