A simcha celebration lasts just a short time, but with professional photography the event can be relived and shared for years. The most beautiful photos, though, will remain a hidden treasure if they’re not displayed properly. Shira Berkowitz designs photo albums and wall art that show your photos with the highest quality design and printing for lasting enjoyment.
Choosing photos for an album is a daunting task, especially when you have many of the same pose or action. That’s a labor of love for Berkowitz. She not only looks through all your photos to select the best version of a shot, she will choose photos that lend themselves to the layout and shape of an album. Berkowitz’s specialty is blending photos together. It’s a technique that gives the photos an almost cinematic effect of one scene transitioning to another. Whether you choose a classic layout, with a variety of full page and smaller groups of images, or a more artistic layout, the quality of the photos is what makes them stand out. Berkowitz only uses labs that produce accurate, rich, lasting colors.
Materials matter. To last, an album should be professionally bound, so it’s sturdy as well as attractive. A well-produced album signals to the viewer that they are looking at a special moment in time. Leather is the best option, said Berkowitz. If you like the idea of a photo on the cover, she can do a cutout design, so a photo peeks through. Acrylic and velvet are also stunning. She recently made a bar mitzvah album with a wood cover in a wooden presentation box, with laser etching on the front.
Simcha photos make fabulous wall art. Choose a large version of a single photo or group several together. The style you choose adds to the design. Acrylic gives you the look of glass, only less fragile, for a transparent, sleek aesthetic. Canvas gives a textured look and metal is bright and shiny. Berkowitz has the capability to show you a preview of what your design will look like when it’s on your wall.
When your simcha is a multi-part celebration, you can really get overwhelmed with photo choices. A bar mitzvah album might include a pre-ceremony photo shoot and a celebration party. An engagement often includes the proposal, l’chaim and vort. Berkowitz will take the time and effort to help you make decisions. “You don’t want your album to look like a scrapbook,” said Berkowitz. “I can organize the different scenes and the timeline to make sure it flows, whether it’s in one or separate albums.” Berkowitz recently made an album for a newborn that continued through his first birthday party for a real first year story.
Clients are often referred to Berkowitz by the photographers or event planners after the event is over. If you’re in the planning stages now, you can begin to think about how the photos should be taken with an eye toward what you want in the album later.
“For a wedding, make sure you give both bride and groom equal representation,” Berkowitz advised. She put together one album where there were magazine quality gorgeous photos of the bride, but the photos of the groom were sparse and inferior. “Let the photographer know in advance who you want included in the photos. Give them a list of people who are special so you don’t forget them. In the middle of an event, it’s hard to remember.”
Berkowitz began producing photo albums for friends and family as a hobby. She enjoyed it so much and got such positive feedback, that she decided to make albums for clients. Take a look at the Custom Album Design by Shira atnwww.customalbumdesignbyshira.com to see what she has done for others and can do for you.
Follow her atfacebook.com/customalbumdesign and instagram.com/customalbumdesign. For more information, call (845) 367-1091 or email [email protected].
Bracha Schwartz is special sections editor at The Jewish Link.
