By Eve Bell

I am not sure when I started to enjoy taking photos. My DSLR was a gift from my husband and it was on auto for years until I went on a course to actually learn how to use it. Now I am never without it.

My children are not camera shy, good job with them being my favourite subject. Along with the sea and I have a thing for trees.

I have stacks and stacks of photos of the kids. Kids by the sea, kids by trees. On my hard drive doing nothing. Apart from the odd few, I put on Facebook for my family to see.

Recently, while browsing Instagram, I saw a post from Saal Digital asking for people who love photography to review their photo books and thought I would put my name in the hat. And here I am.

I’ve made photo books in the past with other companies and never thought they were anything special, so I have to be honest, that is all I was expecting. But these photo books are way above that standard. They are not done on a native website, you need to download the program to build your projects.

The program is easy to use and I am so impressed with what you can do – from adding filters, enhancing photos and using all the layouts – or just building your own. There are a huge amount of backgrounds and textures – all interchangeable. There are so many fonts too that you can choose from.

I chose to go for a simple design, which I think shows my photos off. I absolutely loved putting it together. So good to see my photos actually doing something and having a book to show friends and family. Like the old days – when showing off your holidays pics was an event and not just a scroll on a phone.

I chose matte square photobook and was blown away when I received it. It is like a coffee table book. With really thick pages and shows off my photos beautifully.

I now have several years worth of photos to make into these books now. The children love to look through them, I suppose a photo album is a novelty for them. These books tick all the boxes. It’s such a mindful project – reliving memories, enjoying my photos and getting my creative juices flowing.

It seems I am going to be busy with my back catalogue of photos. Making these books is my new favourite thing.