A Walk Down Memory Lane

Hi everyone!

Who doesn't like walking down memory lane? I love looking at pictures and seeing what great times I've had with family and friends. I was given the opportunity to participate in the Foodbuzz Tastemaker Program with KODAK Gallery. The best part? I would be able to create a book of my own using my photos and memories!

Now the tough part was choosing a theme or subject for my book. I could have done my wedding, but that would have taken FOREVER. I could have created my own cookbook, but I realized I eat out more than I actually cook. Then it came to me: a photo memoir of all the Filipino food events my crew and I have produced as well as random foodventures I had since the Summer of 2010.

Asian Culinary Forum's Adobo Throwdown
As some of you know, I am a blogger here in San Francisco, and I also enjoy hosting events that spread awareness of Filipino food. This book started to become a memoir of how my kapaMEALya crew and I met and started a group to celebrate our love for Filipino food.


Movers and Shakers Dinner at Attic
I went back and gathered all the pictures I could find of the Filipino-centric events and dinners I went to, and found HUNDREDS. My friends and I sure love to take pictures of our food! I got so hungry making the layouts!


Sisig Burrito Day at Papalote and Kulinarya at the City View
I also included pictures of special events that my food friends hosted at their restaurants and Filipino food competitions that were held in San Francisco.


Outside In X - a music and street food festival
Memories did flood back into my mind as I used Kodak's program to resize the pictures and made sure that each pic was in the right place.


A Dinner I Hosted at Patio Filipino in San Bruno
I realized one thing about my style and how I wanted the book to look. I am very simple and very "symmetrically" driven. I made sure that a page with 4 slots for photos and line for copy was the 1st page of each event.


Keaton's Big Break:
he made longanisa corn dogs ON The Wow Truck!
I also noticed that my days of being high school yearbook editor had come into play. I would make sure that all the names of the events, the event dates, and venue were 100% before moving on to the next page.


I want to let the world know I ♥ Filipino Food!

I have thousands of pictures on my cameras and phone of all the Filipino food I ate. This double-page spread was just a fraction of all the Filipino food I ate in a year. It amazed me that there are so many items on a Filipino menu!


...maraming salamat...
So many people were involved in making these memories! I wanted to acknowledge them by having a "maraming salamat" (thank you) page at the end of the book. Without their love for Filipino food and their support of our events, I guarantee that the book I currently have (*ahem* 53 pages *ahem*) would not be as large.

The photos I included are gorgeous not only because they look beautiful but also because of the people behind the camera taking them. They are my friends, my colleagues, and family. This book reminds me that Filipino food is not just food. It's love, camaraderie, fun, and even spontaneity.

Making this book was incredibly easy because of how simple the layouts and templates were to implement on the page, but it did get a bit complicated when I uploaded hundreds of pictures and decided which ones to include on the page and which ones to toss. What I appreciated was the little icon that showed up on a picture if the resolution was too low to produce a good print. One thing I would have liked is a spell-checker. While it is up to me to know pronouns and people's names, having a spell check system to review the copy would have been great.

Would I use Kodak to make another photobook?

Yes, I would.

I think you should give it a try as well. Here is a link to the Kodak Gallery: www.kodakgallery.com/creativity - with this link, you get 40% off your next medium OR large size photobook**! With it being so easy to put a book together, you would be foolish not to. I know you have tons of pics in your memory cards and SD cards what haven't been uploaded yet! You know who you are out there!

Give it a shot. Who knows, the book you create now may be an heirloom in the future!

xoxo,
Jo

**40% off photobook offer good from 8/1/11 - 8/31/11 - www.kodakgallery.com/creativity

Disclaimer: As part of the Foodbuzz Tastemaker Program, I received a free medium photobook to create "A Year of Filipino Food" Photo Memoir.