The first-day-of-school photo, every year

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.

Before you start: make sure your phone is backed up. Deleting is easier when nothing can be lost.

The book comes, and for one evening nobody looks at their phone.

Marcus, father of three

A few small rules

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.

1. Delete the obvious misses: blurs, pockets and thumbs.
2. Star one photo per day, even on dull days.
3. Pick the cover last, once the month has a shape.

What we got wrong

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.

Keep it simple

Look back at last year’s book before you start this month’s. It reminds you what you enjoyed seeing again and what you skipped past, which makes this month’s choices quicker and kinder.

Set aside a fixed time for it. The last Sunday of the month works for a lot of readers because the week is quiet and the month is complete.

• Pick a fixed day each month
• Star photos as you take them
• Keep one photo per day at most

Why it works

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.

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.

When to stop

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.

Delete duplicates as you go rather than saving them for later. Later rarely comes, and a cleaner camera roll makes picking much easier.

Before you start: make sure your phone is backed up. Deleting is easier when nothing can be lost.

What to look for

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.

Faces matter, but so do places. Include at least one picture of the room, the street or the view where the month happened.

1. Delete the obvious misses: blurs, pockets and thumbs.
2. Star one photo per day, even on dull days.
3. Pick the cover last, once the month has a shape.

Try it this month

Hand the phone to someone else at least once a month. It is the only way the photographer gets into the book.

Most people find the first month the hardest. You are learning what you like, and every photo feels important. By the third month you will notice yourself moving faster, trusting your first reaction and spending your time on the handful of close calls instead of on every single picture.

One more thing

Take one photo before the moment and one after. The before and after often say more than the moment itself.

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.

• Back up before deleting anything
• Leave the cover for last
• Hand the camera to someone else