Tips for Taking Back to School Pictures

It’s back-to-school season, and you know what that means: freshly sharpened #2 pencils, haircuts, crisp clean notebook pages, milk money, and first day of school pictures! If you’re unsure of how to capture the perfect back to school pics, check out some of these first day of school picture ideas. Fill the frame The whole back-to-school outfit and the meet-the-teacher scene are probably already on your back to school photos list, but a child’s face changes more year to year than you might realize. So while you have that Nikon Z-series camera and lens from Beachcamera.com out, and a squeaky clean kid, come in tight and grab a few first day of school pictures that fill the whole frame with that face you so adore. Same pose, same place Back to school photos mark an annual milestone and are a great way to document your child’s growth from year to year. Those changes are especially remarkable when taken with the same pose and same location each year, so take at least one first day of school picture each school year of your child on the front porch or next to the mailbox. You can even plant a tree on your child’s first day of school, though you might want to do it the day before. Then, every year until they graduate, you can have a back to school photoshoot next to the same tree using your mirrorless Canon R camera from Beachcamera.com. Show them what to do with their hands Anxious hands instantly make a photo look awkward. Tell them to give you attitude with hands-on hips, suggest a more relaxed look with thumbs in the pockets or arm around a sibling, or toss them a meaningful prop (soccer ball, stack of books, mini chalkboard) to hold on to during the back to school photoshoot. Switch to storytelling Rather than forcing a pose on the first day, seize the opportunity to capture aspects of the back-to-school story that you can shoot from the sidelines. Get first day of school pictures of them boarding the bus, catching up with old friends, or walking down the hallway. Don’t forget the clothes Your kids probably spent a lot of time picking out what they were going to wear for the first day of school, so make sure you get the entire outfit in the back to school pics. And don’t forget to include their awesome new backpacks and lunch boxes! Take a few candid shots It’s important to take a few serious portraits, especially if you plan on sending some to family members. But it’s just as important to take a few funny back to school pictures of your kids goofing off or playing together on the first day of school. Use a cookie sheet Buy magnets that include numbers and letters. Grab a cookie sheet and let your kids spell out their name and what grade they’re in. They can hold this up in their first day of school pictures so everyone will remember the details years down the road. Use a blank wall If you’re tech savvy, you can take back to school pics with your kid standing to one side of a blank wall. Then you can use Photoshop or Picmonkey to add a bunch of information about them in that blank space. Have a flashback If it’s not your child’s first year at school, you can have them hold a picture of their first day of school picture from the year before. This allows you to see exactly how much they’ve grown. They’re growing up; you can’t stop it, but you can bottle the memories up with your Sony a7R cameras, and you’ll have these pictures to look back on for a lifetime.