March Meeting
Tuesday, March 8th, 7:00pm
at Accurate Image
click for driving directions
Creating the Wedding Storybook
presented by
Vaughn Monigold

  “It ain’t your Momma’s album,” the headline read. And it’s true.  Today’s wedding albums are larger, more luxurious and more creative than ever before. Photographers are no longer tied to the standard pictures-under-a-mat album.  They have access to far more creative layouts, even montage pages created digitally.

Vaughn Monigold, PPA Certified, M.Photog.Cr., will take photographers through his transition from the relatively dull presentations of the past to the albums that have made wedding photography fun again. “Albums and album design have come a long way since I was fortunate to receive PPA merits for five of my albums and the trophy for best wedding album in Southwest Competition,” Monigold says.  “Those style albums don’t cut it any more with brides, and they sure don’t make any points with judges.

Monigold said he first began searching for ways to break free from the maximum “four pictures to a page” mat.  He also was looking for a way to cut expenses so he could keep more of the money that had been going to album companies and the lab. But the story-telling principles he has used since starting his business in 1983 has remained basically the same.  With slides and handouts, he will illustrate how he plans the photography and lays out the album to create the desired wedding story, regardless of which book the photographs are presented in. He also will discuss digital vs. film capture at weddings and give detailed steps for creating some designer and montage pages with the use of Photoshop.

Monigold had been in photojournalism and public relations photography for many years before starting his business as a parttime venture in Lubbock in 1983.  He opened his first studio and went fulltime ten years later. While serving as vice-president of TPPA in 1998, Vaughn selected Waco as the site for his TPPA fall seminar to mark the 100th anniversary of the formation of TPPA by photographers meeting in Waco. It was during that 1998 seminar that he called together a dozen Waco area photographers to see if there was interest in organizing a PPA affiliate.  And the Heart of Texas guild was born. Monigold and his wife, Eleanor, have since moved back to East Texas and currently have business operations in Tyler and in De Queen, Ar.

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