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.
Quick tip: star photos on your phone as you take them. Picking takes half the time at the end of the month.
My mum reads the captions more than she looks at the pictures.
Leila, who writes every caption by hand
Try it this month
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.
- Write a few words beside the best ones
- Leave the cover for last
- Hand the camera to someone else
When to stop
Hand the phone to someone else at least once a month. It is the only way the photographer gets into the book.
If two photos are nearly the same, keep the one where someone is doing something. A raised hand, a turned head or a half-finished sentence gives a picture life that a perfectly still pose rarely has, even when the still one is technically better.
My mum reads the captions more than she looks at the pictures.
Leila, who writes every caption by hand
Start with what you already have
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.
Leave a little space. Not every page needs to be full, and an empty corner gives the eye somewhere to rest.
Quick tip: star photos on your phone as you take them. Picking takes half the time at the end of the month.
A few small rules
Write the year on the spine. It sounds obvious, but without it a shelf of books quickly becomes a puzzle.
Back up before you delete anything. It takes a minute and removes the fear that stops people from clearing out at all.
- Hand the camera to someone else
- Pick a fixed day each month
- Leave the cover for last
Why it works
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.
Keep the rejected photos somewhere safe for a while. Tastes change, and a picture you passed over may be the one you want next year.
We don’t take more photos than we used to. We just look at them now.
Ana, a reader since the first year
Make it a habit
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.
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.
Reader tip: one family keeps a paper list on the fridge of moments they want in the next book.
What to look for
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.
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.
- Leave the cover for last
- Hand the camera to someone else
- Keep one photo per day at most
One more thing
Be generous on the first pass. You are not deciding what goes in the book yet, only what is definitely out.
If you have too many photos of one day, that day probably mattered. Give it a spread of its own rather than cutting it down to one.
I thought I needed a better camera. I needed a better window.
Tom Okafor, Paperleaf
What we got wrong
Take one photo before the moment and one after. The before and after often say more than the moment itself.
Does this work for older kids too? Mine are 11 and 14 and hide from the camera.
This is exactly the nudge I needed. My camera roll has four thousand photos from this year alone.
We tried the one-photo-per-day rule last month and it made picking so much easier. Thank you!
I never thought about the light from the window. Moved the high chair and the difference is huge.
Thanks for asking this, I was wondering the same.
We have the same problem. Starring photos as we go helped a lot.
Thank you, that really made our day.
I never thought about the light from the window. Moved the high chair and the difference is huge.
This is exactly the nudge I needed. My camera roll has four thousand photos from this year alone.
Such a simple idea and I had never tried it. Doing it tonight.