Imagine a bar mitzvah without a book? In the seventies, eighties and nineties, those with a formal reception for family and friends had a photographer and then eagerly planned and anxiously anticipated the arrival of a Bar or Bat Mitzvah album, which would become a valuable heirloom to share with a future spouse and then kids!
For decades my clients felt that the product was absolutely essential. Perfection and thoroughness in the design of their child’s album was tireless. For Bnai Mitzvahs, parents required that each child have his or her very own book with tweaks to personalize it with that child’s friends and portraits revolving around him or her. What effort we went to in making those albums perfect! I cannot imagine the outrage if for any reason the “pictures did not come out” or, if there was no album to be had. Back then we shot a mere two hundred photos, which then seemed generous. If one shot was missed it was a big deal. Shoppers would ask “how many photos do you take?”. They wanted more to choose from.
A few months after the client received the proofs we would meet to plan the album. Then, book binders only bound the books. We had to pull the negatives, write up instructions for each negative, which then got sent to a photo-lab. Prints received from the lab would have to be quality checked and some needed reprinting. Then they would be hand retouched, and finally the set of all album pages would go for binding. All this took many months. For those who printed our own images, the details involved where tenfold. Today production can be much easier and faster.
Yet some parents never get around to choosing their child’s photos, or making the album. Why? They await the proofs; check that they looked good, and that they have pictures of all their friends. But then many never choose their photos. Invariably the old adage that the most important photo is always the one their photographer missed, has led real pros to shoot very heavy to increase the likelihood of having what is later desired while countless newbie pros simply shotgun their shoots – not knowing what is good or bad –“just to be sure”.
From the artist’s perspective this disinterest in albums raises questions:
Have phones made photos commonplace? Is there that one photo still missed which negates having any album at all? Does the quest for “best” image become such an obsession that it is never completed? Are so many photos of interest that rejecting them in favor of the few to be bound is more painful than not having any book at all, and therefore ever having to make that decision?
Might every day be meaningful, and a Bar Mitzvah celebration just one of those many days who’s photos are found in chronological order somewhere in our phone backups? With all our daily selfies, has the bar/bat album lost its purpose? My informal research leads me to find that everyone who has their recent album, values it much and enjoys both knowing that they have it and reviewing it regularly. However, some feel that it has to be perfect which not a clear specification so hard to undertake. Others feel there is no urgency. Having fewer shots to choose from does not speed things up, and having more does not always include that “most important” shot. Many simply never get around to it.
This article originally appeared in The Jewish Star Newspaper