Children are the most photographed people on earth and the hardest to photograph well. They move, they hide and they pull faces the moment a camera appears. The good news is that you do not need them to cooperate.
Here are the photos that made it into the book. Tap any of them to see it larger.
6 photos
Select a photo to see it larger. Use the arrow keys to move between photos.
Start with what you already have
Forget the perfect portrait. Aim for pictures that show what this age was really like.
The photos you will treasure most are rarely the posed ones. They are the ones where the child forgot you were there.
- Star photos as you take them
- Pick a fixed day each month
- Keep one photo per day at most
What we got wrong
Faces matter, but so do places. Include at least one picture of the room, the street or the view where the month happened.
Do not be afraid of imperfect photos. A little blur or a stray elbow often tells you more about the day than a tidy, posed shot.
Picking is a skill. Like any skill, it gets faster.
Priya Nair, Paperleaf print room
Keep it simple
Try to include everyone. It is easy to end up with a book full of the children and none of the person holding the camera.
Do not wait for a special occasion. The ordinary weeks are the ones people forget, and the ones they most want to see again.
Good to know: every Paperleaf book has room for thirty photos, so there is no prize for keeping more.
What to look for
Share the book when it arrives. Leaving it on the kitchen table for a day is often enough for everyone to have a look.
On the second pass, look for variety. A month of the same room and the same faces feels flat, even if each photo is lovely on its own.
- Back up before deleting anything
- Leave the cover for last
- Pick a fixed day each month
A few small rules
Watch the light at different times of day in your own home. Most houses have one window that is lovely for an hour every afternoon.
Print sizes matter less than you think. A small photo surrounded by white space can feel more special than one stretched to fill the page.
I thought I needed a better camera. I needed a better window.
Tom Okafor, Paperleaf
Make it a habit
Back up before you delete anything. It takes a minute and removes the fear that stops people from clearing out at all.
Leave a little space. Not every page needs to be full, and an empty corner gives the eye somewhere to rest.
Reader tip: one family keeps a paper list on the fridge of moments they want in the next book.
One more thing
Think about how the photos sit next to each other. Two busy pictures side by side can fight; a busy one beside a quiet one usually works.
Write the year on the spine. It sounds obvious, but without it a shelf of books quickly becomes a puzzle.
- Pick a fixed day each month
- Include at least one place, not just faces
- Keep one photo per day at most
Try it this month
Quiet months are worth printing too. A month with no trips and no birthdays often turns into the book people return to, because it shows what ordinary life looked like before it changed.
Hand the phone to someone else at least once a month. It is the only way the photographer gets into the book.
I thought I needed a better camera. I needed a better window.
Tom Okafor, Paperleaf
When to stop
Make a cup of tea, sit somewhere comfortable and put the phone on do-not-disturb. The job goes faster when it does not compete with messages.
If you share a camera roll with someone, agree on who picks which month. Taking turns means each book has a slightly different point of view, and nobody ends up doing all of the work every time.
Quick tip: star photos on your phone as you take them. Picking takes half the time at the end of the month.
Why it works
Do not forget the in-between moments: the car park before the party, the coats piled on a chair, the walk home in the dark. They are the parts of a day that nobody photographs on purpose and everybody recognises straight away.
Delete duplicates as you go rather than saving them for later. Later rarely comes, and a cleaner camera roll makes picking much easier.
- Leave the cover for last
- Pick a fixed day each month
- Back up before deleting anything
Start with what you already have
Keep the phone charged and the lens clean on days you expect to matter. It sounds small, but a flat battery or a smudged lens has cost more good pictures than any missing piece of equipment.
Try not to edit every photo. A little brightening is fine, but heavy filters date quickly and make a year of books look uneven when they sit together on a shelf. Let the light of the day show.
I thought I needed a better camera. I needed a better window.
Tom Okafor, Paperleaf
What we got wrong
Some readers keep a short list of rules on a sticky note beside the computer. Ours says: faces first, then places, then anything that made us laugh. It is not scientific, but it stops the session turning into an evening of second-guessing.
Keep a note of what happened that month as you go. A few words beside a photo are worth far more than you expect a year later.
Good to know: every Paperleaf book has room for thirty photos, so there is no prize for keeping more.
The bit about writing names on the back hit home. We have a box of strangers in our loft.
Such a simple idea and I had never tried it. Doing it tonight.
I never thought about the light from the window. Moved the high chair and the difference is huge.
Thank you for not telling me to buy a new camera.
I printed our first book after reading this and my daughter has not put it down since.