Getting Better Back-to-School Pictures (and all the other milestone images too) \ Child Photographer Glastonbury, Connecticut

So I know I must seem a day late and a dollar short on this one, but I promise in the end it will be worth the read. Each year when that wonderful, heaven-sent first day of school arrives (did I say that out loud?), we all strive to get cute back-to-school pictures of our little ones. We line them up, snap away and even run along side the school bus to get those prized images, no matter how much the kids welcome it or not. And in the end, we love comparing those pictures to all the ones of years past; seeing how much they have grown and matured.

Rockstar was so excited to get on the bus for the first day of school. Let’s hope she feels the same way in a month or two.

Princess was a little timid about her first day. But the pretty outfit made it all worth it.

Then a few days pass, and those beloved images get pushed to the back of our hard drives without a second thought. Surely this moment in their lives is as valuable as Christmas morning or their next birthday? Yeah, but very few of us find a quick snapshot of our kids on the first day of school beautiful enough to deserve a frame on the mantel. Well, if you want your wee ones to use those images to remember these moments right along with you one day, I’ve got a few tips to pass along.

The biggest and most important thing you can do is to “Tell the Story”. Ask yourself, is it really those 5 minutes before you put them on that bus that makes the moment so memorable? No, it’s the entire morning of getting ready and watching their excitement as the clock ticks down. So capture ALL of that.

Superhero getting himself dressed for Pre-K

 I can still remember my first day of kindergarten. And what sticks out in my memory is pulling on my uniform while my brother filled me in on what I could expect on that first day at school. That memory is the picture I would love to have.

Rockstar puts her jewelry on as religiously as I do now. Nothing like a little sparkle to put a spring in your step.

 The next thing to remember is that 95% of the shots you take at an event like this (you know, events that are harried with lots of preparation and end with you sending them bravely out while you shut the door to a painfully quiet house) will completely suck. Take them anyway! Try different angles; above, below, camera tilted, through a cracked door, over the balcony landing. Just have fun with it! Later you can feel free to go through them and hit the delete key before anyone else sees. But, most likely you’ll end up with 5 or 6 real keepers that truly tell a story. And that’s all you need, unless the event is something humongous like a wedding.

Now you can do whatever you like to do with your pictures; make a digital scrapbook page, blog about your crazy morning, upload them to Facebook in a collage or even print a few to go in your child’s memory box. I promise you, your favorite images, will be the ones sans backpack and school bus.

So sock all of this away until next year. Heck, use all of this when you are taking your kids Halloween pictures. Then share them with me because I absolutely love looking at pictures!