Most advice about choosing photographs is about what to include. The harder discipline is the other one, and it runs into a belief people hold without noticing they hold it: that a book of a period should be a complete account of it.
It should not, and it cannot be. A book is an edit. Every book ever made about anything left out more than it kept.
A gap is not a lie.
Five things worth removing on purpose
1. The year that went badly. An illness, a job that ended, a stretch nobody wants to revisit. A ten-year book that quietly moves from 2019 to 2021 is not dishonest — it is a book made by somebody who decided what it was for. The anniversary after a hard year →
2. People who are no longer in the picture. An ex-partner, a friendship that ended, a relative nobody speaks to. Ask whoever the book is for, then act on the answer without apologising for it. Photographs of an ex-partner →
3. Anything requiring an explanation the book cannot carry. If a photograph needs three sentences of background to make sense, and there is nowhere for three sentences, it is doing nothing on the page.
4. The photographs that are only there for fairness. One of each cousin, one from each year, one of every friend. Symmetry is not a reason, and books built on it feel administered rather than made.
5. Anything you are including because somebody would notice its absence. Occasionally a real consideration. Usually a fear that is not shared by anyone who will open the book.
The distinction that matters
| Leaving out | Rewriting |
|---|---|
| A period, because the book is about something else | Pretending a period did not happen, in a family record |
| A person, at the recipient’s request | Removing a child’s parent from their childhood |
| Photographs that add nothing | Removing evidence somebody else relies on |
| A difficult year, in a gift | The same, in the only archive that exists |
The right-hand column is a different act, and the difference is whether the book is the only account. A gift is an edit; a family’s sole archive is a record, and records should be generous. Photographs of someone who has died →
The permission most people need
The reason this is hard is rarely the individual decision. It is a feeling that leaving something out is a small dishonesty.
It is worth saying plainly: nobody opening a photo book expects it to be complete. They expect it to be good. The completeness anxiety is entirely on the side of the person making it, and it is the single biggest cause of books that are too long and too flat.
The one thing not to leave out
Having argued for cutting: there is a category that gets removed constantly and should not be, and it is the opposite of everything above.
The ordinary. The kitchen, the commute, the flat, a Tuesday. These are the first things cut, because they do not look like they belong in a book — and they are reliably the pages people stop on ten years later, when the holidays have blurred together and the flat has been sold.
Occasions are remembered anyway. That is what makes them a poor use of a page and the ordinary a good one. The photographs nobody thinks to take →
What to do with what you cut
Keep the files. Cutting a photograph from a book is not deleting it, and the second book — or the same book in five years — may want it.
⚠️ We keep your files for seven days after dispatch and then delete them permanently. Your own copies are yours, and they are the ones to keep. Are my photos safe with you? →
Frequently asked
Is it wrong to leave things out of a photo book? No. A book is an edit by definition and nobody opening one expects a complete record.
Should I include a bad year? Only if the book is about it. A gift can move past a difficult period without being dishonest.
When does leaving something out become a problem? When the book is the only account — a sole family archive should be generous, where a gift can be selective.
Should I include a photo of everyone, for fairness? No. Symmetry is not a reason, and books built on it feel administered rather than made.
What happens to the photos I cut? Nothing, on your side — keep them. We delete our copies seven days after dispatch.
Part of our guide to choosing photographs. See also: how many photographs is too many and photographs of someone who has died.
An edit, not an archive: Photo magazines from ₹499 · All 11 keepsakes