All About Our Printed Heirlooms - Jacksonville Family Photographer
When we first started coming up with the idea of Finch and Laurel as a photography service, we knew that we wanted to offer a full-service experience that takes our clients all the way from planning the session through to delivery of finished, printed products. This way, our clients can walk away not only with digital images, but also with absolutely beautiful printed keepsakes that they can enjoy and cherish for decades to come. We decided we wanted to be in it for the long-haul, photographing moments that we know not only parents but also their children will appreciate in the future. And we decided that in order to make that happen, we needed to source our printed products from labs that have a strong emphasis on creating long-lasting, beautiful work that will stand the test of time.
And so the hunt began! We spent several weeks researching and communicating with artisan labs, designing and purchasing product samples so that we could touch and feel these items and ensure that they meet our expectations for quality and craftsmanship. We researched turn-around times, what materials they construct their products from, whether they take strides to be environmentally-friendly, and if their material is archival-quality and holds a strong guarantee against fading and other issues. After several months, we finally settled on a special three who we have partnered with to produce our albums, books, canvases, and wall art.
We're very proud of our printed products, and wanted to take some time to introduce you to some of our gorgeous fine art keepsakes; we hope it will help you to start thinking about how you may want to use and display your photos!
The Bookshelf Album
The Finch and Laurel Bookshelf Album is a handmade, museum quality 10x10" album that fits well on most bookshelves. This album features custom-designed album layouts that help to tell the story of your day, and allows enough pages to comfortably fit 100 photos. The albums are constructed using archival inks, and come with a lifetime guarantee of quality from the lab. The Bookshelf Album has layflat pages, allowing you to easily see the photos when viewing it with family; this feature also allows us to create designs that overflow from one page to another, so that your favorite photos can take up a full spread. The album features gorgeous fine art, water-resistant, coated matte photo paper that you can wipe clean if needed when viewing the album with little ones. The coating gives the paper in the album a tactile, velvety feel. We can add custom debossing for our clients at no additional cost on the cover of the album and the slipcase that comes with it, to allow for customization like our client's names. We can also add debossing to the spine of the album-- we love this feature to add the year or date the photos were taken, so that our clients can easily tell which album is which when one day, they have a bookshelf full of our albums. Our clients can choose from a coated book cloth or full grain leather cover-- both options are beautiful, high-quality, and sturdy, and can be wiped gently clean when needed. The company that we source our albums through is environmentally-conscious and focuses on minimizing waste. They ship their albums with biodegradable packaging, donate leftover scraps of leather from album production to a nonprofit to make purses and other items, and donate leftover non-toxic book glue to schools for children to use for projects. Their lab works exclusively with professional photographers, and they've been in business for 16 years and counting. Every time our clients order these albums, we can rest assured that our clients' stories will be preserved for a lifetime or more to come, and that our artwork will be displayed and enjoyed in a truly beautiful way.
The Highlights Book
The little brother or sister to our Bookshelf Album, our Highlights Book is an archival 8x12" book that is, again, made by hand. These books also feature the perk of having a layflat design that allows you to view your pages and moments easily without worrying about the crease from the spine getting in the way. The book's pages are thinner than our Bookshelf Album, but are still made from archival paper and long-lasting inks. The book comes with a protective, custom-designed dust-cover that mirrors the design of the book's front cover; both can include the date on the spine so that you can easily tell which book is which when viewing it on a bookshelf. We include a slipcase with this book as well, for extra protection for your treasured heirloom. This book can comfortably fit 50 photos, and we design these books to feature one photo per page, to give each photo a spotlight to shine on their own.
Our vendor has been creating these handcrafted keepsakes for over ten years, and once again, is very conscious of their environmental impact. Books with mistakes are donated to local elementary schools, and misprinted pages are made into writing pads for kindergarten classes. They also provide albums to local non-profits so they can gain funding for social and environmental projects. On top of that, they use recycled craft paper for shipping and reuse shipping materials whenever possible, to mitigate waste. This option is slimmer and sleeker than the Bookshelf Album, but just as beautiful.
Wall Art
We offer two wall art options here at Finch and Laurel: classic matted prints and more modern stretched canvases. Both are museum-quality and built to last, and created by a lab that donates monthly to water.org and charitywater.org to help solve the global water crisis. Our prints and canvases come with a lifetime guarantee from yellowing or fading, to give our clients peace of mind that these heirlooms will last for generations.
Our prints are created from 100% cotton archival papers in a variety of textures, with an added option of a torn-edge to accent the print and lend an additional handmade touch. We include matting with each of our prints to add extra protection from scratches and fingerprints, and to prevent the print from sticking to the glass when framed (Florida humidity makes prints without mats stick to glass so easily). The mat board is made from salvaged cotton from the textile industry, and is also archival, acid and lignin free, and the best quality in the industry.
Our canvases are also made from 100% cotton, this time coated in a matte varnish to prevent glare and protect the canvas, and are also archival and acid-free. The canvases are hand-stretched on wood stretcher bars and custom cut with care and precision. The finished products are truly a thousand steps above the quality of consumer print labs like Walgreens or Costco, and are guaranteed to last.
Because we care so much about our clients' images and want to make sure they're here to stay, we also include a digital copy of each image ordered so that our clients can archive their images and back them up in the Cloud. This way, regardless of fire, other natural disasters, or digital issues like hard-drive failure, your memories of your family will be safe and carefully preserved. We want our clients to know that we've put an incredible amount of time and thought into how we can give them the best experience possible, and deliver products we can stand by and guarantee for a lifetime to come.