Two different pieces of writing live in a photo diary and they have different jobs.
Yours, at the front, once. It explains the object and starts it. Theirs, everything after. Your job is to make that easy to begin.
Your page, at the front
Four things, in about two hundred words. Longer than that and it becomes a foreword to somebody else’s book.
1. Why this, and why now. One sentence. “You are about to spend a year somewhere none of us have been.”
2. What the photographs at the front are. Not a caption on each — a line about what that section is. “These are the last four years, so you have something to start from.”
3. What you hope goes in it. This is the instruction, and it should be modest. “Not every day. Just the bits you would want to remember wrongly.”
4. A date, and your name. It becomes the first entry, which is the point.
⚠️ Do not write “I hope you fill this.” It reads as an obligation, and the pressure is what stops people starting.
Prompts, if you want to include them
Some diaries work better with a light structure. A few prompts scattered through the printed section give a hesitant writer somewhere to begin.
| Prompt | Why it works |
|---|---|
| “Where you are, right now” | Concrete. Anyone can answer it |
| “Something that happened this week that will not matter in a year” | The best kind of entry |
| “One thing you have changed your mind about” | Produces the pages people reread |
| “Who you saw today” | The detail that vanishes fastest |
| “What this room looks like” | Rooms are forgotten completely |
Do not put a prompt on every page. That turns a diary into a form, and a form is something people abandon.
For the person writing it
If the diary is yours rather than a gift, the only advice that matters is this: write short and write often, rather than long and rarely.
Three lines on a Tuesday, kept up, is worth more in five years than two thousand words written once in March. And the entries that turn out to be worth reading are almost never about the big events — those you remember anyway.
What it costs
| Size | Pages | Price |
|---|---|---|
| 60 sheets | 120 | ₹699 |
| 80 sheets | 160 | ₹899 |
| 100 sheets | 200 | ₹1,099 |
| 120 sheets | 240 | ₹1,299 |
Flat ₹70 delivery anywhere in India. Writing at the front is included — send us the words and we set them.
Frequently asked
What should I write on the first page of a photo diary? Why you are giving it, what the photographs are, what you hope goes in it, and the date. About two hundred words.
Should I include prompts? A few, scattered. A prompt on every page turns the diary into a form.
How long should my message be? Short. It is a note at the front of somebody else’s book, not a foreword.
What should I not write? “I hope you fill this.” The obligation is what stops people starting.
Do you set the writing for me? Yes. Send the words and they are laid out with the printed section.
Part of our guide to photo diaries and card decks. See also: what goes in a photo diary and who a photo diary suits.
With your words at the front: Photo Diary from ₹699 · All 11 keepsakes