Kitchen M Photobook

How do you preserve lemons? Pack them in a mason jar with a ridiculous amount of salt. And then wait. And wait. And wait for weeks to be matured for it to be used in your delicious chicken tajine. Yum.

How do you preserve your precious memories? You can store them in your brain, which sometimes get lost somewhere, a place darker than where you last left your keys, no guarantee of it ever seeing light again. Or you can record a video or take photographs, so long as you keep them safe.

Photographs are not just for you to help remember. Your friends and family get second-hand experience through your photos even if they weren't there. And artists share them so that you can see the world from their perspectives.

Photography has become a very fashionable thing. When I joined a photography club in high school over a decade ago, I looked like a nerd. Back then, film photography was still the mainstream and I developed my photos in the dark room, not in Photoshop. Finishing a roll of film sometimes took so long that I forgot what was in the beginning of the film, but I remember feeling so anxious about seeing my photos in print on my way back from a school trip.

In this day and age, everyone takes photos. People casually own more than one camera including the cellphone kinds. With digital cameras, you review the image right away and delete it if you don't like it. There is no wait time. You can upload them on facebook, twitter, flickr in less than a minute. Have you ever paid attention to how many photos you take? I bet many of us agree that we own more digital photos than physically printed photos these days. Sharing photos on facebook is fun, but I have to say that having physical photo albums still gives me that satisfaction I can't get from seeing pictures on a computer screen.

Allow me to introduce, Foodbuzz Tastemaker with Kodak Gallery. Foodbuzz teamed up with Kodak Gallery and gave Kitchen M a try at making a photobook. Their medium-sized hard cover photobook comes with 20 pages and you can add more pages if you wish at additional cost. Once you upload all photos into your Kodak gallery, it's a piece of cake. If you don't trust your design sense, you can even let them make a book for you with just a one finger click.

But I'm a person who prefers creating things from scratch. I wished there were more options for people who are like me. For example, you can only select pre-made layouts and there is no free-hand way. One big thing that bothered me was the back cover. I wanted to print the
back cover with the same textured photo as the front cover, but unfortunately if you don't choose what they already have, you can only insert a photo into a tiny square in the middle. I contacted their customer service and asked if it's possible to print the back cover as
same as the front cover. They said that it is not possible at this time, however they would relay my feedback to the design department.

Overall, I like how my photobook turned out. Their pre-made layouts are pretty simple and clean. Their site is quite user friendly. If you would like to give it a try, creating an account and sharing online photo albums are absolutely free. If you decide to order a book,
tastemaker with Kodak is offering 40% off until the end of this month. You can start from here.