Hmm, probably a slightly misleading title there but for the life of me I could not think of a title that wasn’t a hundred words long. So whats this post all about I hear you cry? Well its about going green. It seems to be that just about everyone these days is trying to do their bit for the environment, whether it’s energy saving light bulbs or recycling, being green is what we should all strive to be.

Now I am by no means an Eco Warrior myself. I am forever being hounded by my other half for not separating out my recyclables, and it is because of her constant nagging  encouragement that I thought I would try to be green in my photography.  A redesign of my Wedding DVD packaging was on the cards, so I have taken my first steps towards being Green by redesigning how I package my DVD’s

The vast majority of photographers these days offer a CD/DVD package of some kind, and normally the DVD is presented in a plastic CD case with a printed cardboard label…not the most attractive way of presenting the memories of one of the most special days of your life is it? So, I have created a stunning DVD presentation box which all my Bride and Grooms shall receive after their wedding at absolutely no extra cost to them. Well enough of the writing, I guess you want to see what all the fuss is about.

First off, the box itself. Now as much as I wanted to build a decent box myself I could not find a design that worked. For that reason I decided to go for a ready made recycled box. Now these boxes are a little special, they are fair trade and are hand made from recycled paper in Katmandu. All the profits from the sales of these boxes go to the villagers who made them and the photos do not do them justice as they are stunning!

The box is wrapped up with Raffia string, the label that is attached is a piece of torn hand made paper which has been created from recycled paper.

Inside this box sits something that I have been working on for a few weeks now. As I said earlier, a plastic CD case is not the most attractive way of presenting a CD or DVD, with that in mind I have handmade a DVD case.

My hand made DVD case is made from natural Hemp fibres and recycled paper, it is sealed with reclaimed ribbon and sits on a bed of locally sourced straw. The box, and the case are completely biodegradable (not that I can imagine you would want to throw this out!) as are all the components that make it up.

So thats it…the redesign of my DVD packaging. The inside of the DVD case itself will probably have an envelope on the inside with information on how to care for your DVD and your licence to print the images on the disc, so by the time this extra information is inside it wont look quite so bare.

I hope you like my new packaging. Next I am planning on tackling how I package my photo albums and photo boxes, so keep checking back to see how they are coming along!