Any book that covers several years has the same lopsided pile behind it. A tenth anniversary, a friendship that started in school, a child’s first eight birthdays, a parents’ thirtieth — the recent years arrive as thousands of photographs, and the early ones as a dozen. If the pages follow the pile, the book spends three quarters of itself on the last few years and hurries through the start, which is usually the part the recipient most wants to see.
Balancing is a decision you make before sending anything. It is not about giving every year the same number of pages. It is about giving each year the pages it deserves, on purpose.
Why the pile is usually lopsided
The imbalance is not your fault, and it is almost always the same shape:
- Phones improved. The early years of a long relationship were shot on older phones, or on a camera whose files now sit on a laptop nobody opens.
- Habits changed. Most people photograph far more now than they did ten years ago.
- Big events dominate. A wedding year, a baby year or a year with a long trip can hold more photographs than several quiet years together.
- Quiet years are under-photographed. A good ordinary year leaves few pictures because nothing seemed worth recording.
Knowing the shape helps, because the fix is also always the same: cut the heavy years harder than feels comfortable, and look harder for the light ones.
Where a decade of photographs actually is →
Set a page budget before choosing a single photo
Work out how many photographs the book holds, then share them out by year before looking at the pictures themselves. The budget is what ends up in the book; send about twice that for each year, so the designer has room to pair and pace. A designed photo magazine carries about three photographs a page; a hardcover album about four.
Here is a worked example for a tenth-anniversary magazine of 40 pages, which holds about 120 photographs.
| Years | Photos available | In the book | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Year 1 (how they met) | 15 | 15 | Every one of them, because this is the part people linger on |
| Years 2–3 | 60 | 18 | A trip, a first flat, the early friends |
| Year 4 (the wedding) | 900 | 24 | The biggest single chapter, cut hard |
| Years 5–7 | 2,000 | 27 | Three ordinary years, the best nine from each |
| Years 8–10 | 4,500 | 30 | Plenty to choose from, so only the best |
| Opening and closing pages | — | 6 | An opening photograph, a now-and-then pair, the last page |
The budget is not a rule the book must obey to the photograph. It is a check. If you find yourself choosing 45 photographs for the last three years, you can see at once which earlier year is paying for it.
Filling the thin years
A year with eight photographs does not have to look thin on the page. A few things help:
- Ask other people. The early years of anything shared — a relationship, a friendship, a family — are often better documented on someone else’s phone. One friend from that time may have twenty pictures you have never seen.
- Use what is not a photograph. A ticket, an invitation, a handwritten note, an old message screenshot, a printed photo from an album at home. Each earns a place and carries a year that has few pictures.
- Give one strong photograph room. Three average photographs from a thin year look like a gap. One good one, printed large with a line of caption, looks like a choice.
- Let words carry it. A short paragraph about that year — where you lived, what you did on Sundays, what everyone was talking about — can hold a page as well as photographs can.
Printing screenshots and chats →
Cutting the heavy years
A year with 900 photographs needs choosing, and the danger is that the choice produces 24 photos of one wedding that all look alike. To keep a heavy year interesting:
- Choose by moment, not by photograph. List the six or seven moments of that year first — the haldi, the pheras, the drive home, the first meal as a married couple. Then pick the best photographs of each.
- One of each kind. One wide photograph of the whole scene, one close face, one detail (hands, jewellery, a plate of food). Three kinds of picture read as a chapter; ten similar ones read as a contact sheet.
- Leave the best-documented day to its own book. If the wedding alone could fill forty pages, it deserves a book of its own — the photographer’s album, or a Wedding Magazine. A few pages here, with a line pointing to it, is enough.
A photo magazine of a single event →
When the imbalance is the point
Sometimes a year should dominate. A book for a child’s eighth birthday may rightly give the first year more pages than the seventh, because the first year changed the most. A book about a friend group can give the year everyone lived in the same city twice the space of the years since.
The test is simple: if you can say why a year has more pages, the imbalance is a choice. If the only reason is that there were more photographs, it is an accident.
A useful way to state the choice on the page is a short line at the start of each section: “2019: the year we moved three times.” Readers accept an uneven book when it is clearly shaped.
Chronological, or not
Balancing by year assumes the book runs in order of time, which suits most multi-year books. If yours is arranged by theme instead — trips, festivals, the kitchen, the friends — do the budget by theme, then check that no single year has quietly taken over every theme.
Sorting photos by story, not by date →
Telling the designer
When you send photographs for one of our designed books, send everything in one folder, or as WhatsApp documents in year order, and pass the balance on with a one-line note per year:
- “Year 1: keep all of these.”
- “Wedding: about 24 in the book — here are 50, favourites starred.”
- “2021–2023: about nine a year in the book.”
The designer lays the pages out from that, and the whole book comes back to you as a digital proof before anything prints. That is the moment to check the balance with fresh eyes: flip through and ask whether any year feels rushed or any chapter feels long.
How to choose photos for a photo book →
Picking the size from the balance
Once you have a budget, the right size is usually obvious. If the total you want to keep is around 70, a 24-page magazine at about three photographs a page holds it. If it is well over a hundred and twenty, a 40-page magazine is the upper limit and a hardcover album, which runs to 100 pages at about four a page, is the better home.
Personalised photo magazines → Hard Cover Album →
Frequently asked
How many pages should each year get in a photo book? Not an equal share. Budget by what each year means, then cut heavy years hard and search harder for photographs from the light ones.
What if one year has only a handful of photos? Ask the people who were there, add tickets, notes and old prints, and give the few good photographs you do have more room on the page.
Should the most recent years get more pages? Only if they matter more. Recent years usually have the most photographs, which is not the same thing.
How do I budget photos for a book that covers twenty years? Group the years into five or six chapters first, give each chapter a share of the pages, and only then choose photographs within each chapter, sending about twice what each chapter will hold.