A Year of Legos

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We just love this photo book project that TPW member Tamra Yandow worked on with her son. Thanks so much for sharing it, Tamra!

When my son first started playing with Legos, I never imagined how his love for them would grow, and how his play with them would evolve. He started with the sets. While entertaining, they were not how I remembered the Legos from my childhood, as the colorful blocks that could be turned into anything you imagined. So, we got him some plain blocks, with no instruction manual. And he thrived with those blocks, making the most intricate, detailed creations, beyond what I had even hoped for his creativity. I then realized that I wanted to capture these creations, for him to remember for years to come, and the photo book idea was born. I soon realized, however, that images alone would not be enough. The details that he would explain to me about his creations needed to be stopped in time as well. My pictures of his creations + his words = A Year of Legos.

I’m sure that this story is a familiar one to many, so I wanted to share some tips and tricks I learned from this project as a way to encourage you to get those images and stories off of your computer and into a book, so that they last forever. The foundation for all of my book-making comes from the workshop at TPW, Intro Photo Book Design, with Stacey Wiseman. My goal here is not to cover book making overall, which Stacey does in-depth, but to provide some specifics about what I learned when I created this Lego book.

Organization

I do all of my photo organization in Lightroom (LR). Upon import, all Lego pictures were tagged as ‘Legos.’ Next, in the metadata for each image, I added the title of the name of each creation. Trust me, this is a step not to pass by. Although it may seem obvious what the difference is between a ‘Destruptobot’ and a ‘Big Giant Structure’ at the time you take the image, you’ll be happy to have that info clearly stated for you when it comes time to create the book.  When the images were tagged and labeled, I then chose my favorites and added to them to a special collection, called ‘Legos.’ Creating the special collection makes it super easy to grab your images to import into your book-making program.

The Images

When I started the book, I thought that I wanted more of an ‘art’ feel to it, so I moved all the creations to our laundry room for a clean background. I eventually learned two things. 1. Some creations were not movable. They were too big, with too many precariously perched bricks just waiting to fall apart. 2. I’m a documentarian at heart. To me, capturing the environment in which he plays with the Legos was just as important as the creations themselves. How he sits, where he creates, what his ‘concentrating’ face looks like – all elements that I wanted to capture along with the pieces and his words. There’s no right answer for how to shoot your images. Think about your style, and the style of the book you want to create, and start shooting! Don’t be afraid to include iphone snapshots, either. Remember, it’s not about the perfect image; it’s about capturing a few minutes in time.

Editing

I tend to prefer a clean edit in my images, and I stayed true to that for this book. I kept the editing simple, and at times had to remind myself that my goal was not to win a best image category. My editing workflow consisted mainly of basic edits such as WB, exposure, straightening, and increasing contrast and clarity. I did not crop on export. This became important when I was choosing my layouts, as it gave me more flexibility. Others choose to crop prior to export, with a clear vision of how the image will work in their book layout. Again, there is no right answer when it comes to editing. Choose your flow, and stick to it.

Narrative

I wanted the narrative to be truly his, so he directed it. I asked him what the name of his creation was, and for him to tell me about it. I took notes in a notebook, and I made sure to write down the date the image was taken, to be able to cross-reference it in LR (this was my saving grace before I started using the metadata labeling!). I took the picture of the creation after he told me about it, to ensure that I would take images of the detailed parts he had told me about.

Book Creation

I used Blurb for this book, as I do for all of our family yearbooks. They have a lot of layout options, but I found that for this project, many of the layouts I used were custom-made.

The best reason to make this book

The one on one time that this project created for us was something that never even crossed my mind when I began. He was beyond thrilled at my undivided attention, and bursting with pride as he shared every bit of minutiae about his creations. He tells me about his Legos a LOT, and I’ll admit that I’m guilty of more than a few “uh-huh’s” while my mind is elsewhere, which I’m sure he can pick up on. But this, this was me paying 100% attention, and the joy it gave both of us was worth every second of this project. He now initiates the interaction, making sure I’ve got notebook and pen in hand before he starts telling me about his creation. He didn’t know it was for a book, until he unwrapped it Christmas morning, at which point all the unwrapping came to a screeching halt. He took time out to sit and look at all the amazing creatures, houses, and monsters he had created (which gave Daddy time to make coffee!).

A final note

Your kid doesn’t play with Legos? Don’t let that stop you! I made an ‘Art and Play’ book for my daughter, with the same positive results. The options for a book similar to this are endless. The foods you bake, the model trains your son loves, the objects you collect on your walks, the books you read together, the artwork your daughter creates. All are snippets of their lives that you can capture for them forever.

Tamra Yandow

Tamra is a photographer and pediatric physical therapist living in the beautiful state of Vermont with her husband and two kids. She loves to capture kids and families in their own environments, in all of their various states of calm or chaos. Her kids tell her she loves coffee a lot.

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Inspired to make a photo book for your kids?  Sign up for the Intro to Photo Book Design Workshop. You’ll learn everything you need to know to establish your theme, organize your photos and design your layouts. Registration is open now and the workshop starts on March 2, 2015.

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Categorized in: Guest Bloggers, Workshops