ANTM judge Nigel Barker reveals how he prepares his Christmas photo books

(Image credit: Mimeo Photos)

As we head into the festive season, our thoughts inevitably turn to finding the perfect gifts for our friends and family. However, if you want to truly wow your intended gift receiver, why not consider creating your own Christmas photo book? After all, what could possibly be a better present than a collection of the best moments from the year immortalized on paper?

To help you create the perfect Christmas photo book, we sat down with Nigel Barker, former judge for reality TV show America's Next Top Model. With years of experience as a fashion photographer, Nigel Barker was also announced as Mimeo Photos' Creative Director in 2018 and has plenty of experience in creating amazing photo gifts.

Personally my favorite and most successful gifts are always photo books. For years now I have created a photo book of my family’s past year’s antics rolled into approximately a 50 page book. The books are like visual diaries and help tell the story of my little family. They have become the most ooh-ed and ahh-ed gifts opened by grandparents, uncle and aunts. I've even started making them for my friends and colleagues to help celebrate weekends, holidays or even jobs that we have enjoyed together.

First of all I use my gut reaction: how does the image make me feel? You should have an instant reaction from a photo. Is it just plain beautiful? Does it immediately make you smile, think, dream or wish? I've found that certain types of photos work particularly well. For example, shots of the sun setting help remind us of the beauty in this world, while the sun rising gives us a promise of what’s to come. The dramatic colors of photos taken at golden hour instantly help give your images gravitas.

I also find that images with a single burst of color in an otherwise monochromatic scene help draw the viewer in by creating a focal point that grabs your attention. I always shoot in RAW, as well this creates larger files and preserves much more detail in the shadows and highlights. In Mimeo Photo Books you can upload TIFF files as well JPEGs which really help to give your photo books that wow factor.

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Nigel transformed this beautiful family snap into the cover for a photo book(Image credit: Nigel Barker)

Without printing, your photos are just a blip on the radar and can easily get lost in the ether of social media. By printing we bring our images to life and preserve them in a much more accessible and tangible format. To be able to touch and hold our memories helps make them real again - and with so many brilliant photographs been taken everyday, there is really no better way to enjoy your work than creating a photo book and telling the story the way you meant it to be seen.

First of all I gather all the relevant images I want to use for the photo book in an album in Apple Photos. I then go through each one inspecting the integrity of the file, i.e. how much digital noise is in the image, how many MBs the image has. I do this to help figure out whether they'll print successfully in the size of the book I've picked out. I also want to know whether I need to tweak any of the shots so they print the way I want them to look. Here’s a quick tip as well - make sure your monitor brightness is set to about two thirds brightness, not full brightness, when you're judging your images for your Christmas photo book. Printers are always set to a midpoint to maximize the most out of your images, so by setting your screen to match this will create a much happier result.

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With over a decade of photographic experience, Louise arms Digital Camera World with a wealth of knowledge on photographic technique and know-how – something at which she is so adept that she's delivered workshops for the likes of ITV and Sue Ryder. Louise also brings years of experience as both a web and print journalist, having served as features editor for Practical Photography magazine and contributing photography tutorials and camera analysis to titles including Digital Camera Magazine and Digital Photographer. Louise currently shoots with the Fujifilm X-T200 and the Nikon D800, capturing self-portraits and still life images, and is DCW's ecommerce editor, meaning that she knows good camera, lens and laptop deals when she sees them.

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