A common reason people give up on the idea: we don't really have photos together.
It comes up for couples who met before everyone photographed everything, for people who simply don't take pictures, and for long-distance relationships where the best moments happened on a video call nobody screenshotted.
An illustrated book handles this better than a photo album, and it is worth understanding why.
What you actually need
Two things:
- One clear, well-lit face photo of each person. This is the only hard requirement — it determines whether the characters look like you.
- Memories. Described, not photographed.
That is it. Pages are illustrated from what you describe, so a moment nobody photographed can still become a page. In a photo album, a memory without a photo simply does not exist. Here it does.
Describing a moment you never photographed
The trick is to describe it the way you would to a friend who asked what it was like.
Four questions cover most of it:
- Where were you? Room, street, city — whatever level you actually remember.
- What time of day, and what was the light doing? Morning kitchen light and 2am streetlight produce very different pages.
- What were you doing with your hands? Cooking, carrying something, holding a phone. This is what stops a page being two people standing still.
- What is the one detail you would mention if you only had one? The wrong-coloured door, the dog that wouldn't leave, the coat that was too big.
Answer those four and you have described a scene more usefully than most photos would.
Where this is actually an advantage
Some of the best pages are ones that could never have been photographed:
- The phone call. One person on a bus, the other in a kitchen, both in one frame — impossible in a photograph, easy in an illustration.
- The years before you met, if the story needs them.
- A moment you were both inside of. Nobody photographs the good bits, because they were busy having them.
- Something that happened in the dark, or in a place where taking a photo would have been strange.
If you have no photos of your relationship, you are not making a worse book. You are making one that is not limited by what someone remembered to capture.
Long distance, specifically
Long-distance couples often have the least usable material — lots of screenshots, few photos together.
What works:
- Two locations in one page. Both of you, both places, one frame.
- The mundane rituals. The standing call time, who always fell asleep first, the timezone maths.
- The airport. Almost every long-distance story has an arrivals hall in it, and almost nobody has a good photo of one.
- The maps. The distance itself, drawn.
What still needs a real photo
Only the faces. If the reference photos are dark, blurry, or obscured, the characters will be a weaker likeness no matter how well you describe everything else.
If your only shared photos are bad, use separate individual photos for reference — a clear solo photo of each person is more useful than a blurry photo of you both.
If you have almost nothing at all
Start with five moments you remember clearly. Not the biggest five — the clearest five. Write four sentences on each using the questions above.
That is a book. It will not be shorter or thinner than one built from photographs, and it will probably contain more of what actually happened.
Then start your book, or read how to choose photos for the reference-photo side.
FAQ
What is the minimum number of photos I need?
One clear face photo of each person. Everything else can be described rather than photographed.
Can a page be made from a memory with no photo at all?
Yes. Pages are illustrated from your description, so a moment nobody photographed works the same as one that was. Often better, because you describe what mattered rather than what happened to be in frame.
We are long distance and have no photos together. Does this still work?
Yes, and it is one of the cases where illustration clearly beats photography — both people in different places can appear in a single page, which no photograph can do.
Our only shared photos are bad quality. What should I use?
Use clear individual photos for the character references, and keep the bad shared photos as memory prompts. Reference quality and story quality are different jobs.