The first-day-of-school photo takes about five minutes, but somehow takes over the whole morning. Getting the sign in the frame, getting everyone to look up before you’re already late.
Getting the shot takes attention, and attention is finite. Taking a picture of something puts you a step outside of it, even for a second.
You end up with a great photo of a morning you were only half present for.
Here’s how we’re thinking about it this year.
The porch photo, if you take one
We love the classic porch shot. If it’s a tradition in your house, get it in the first minute, before anyone’s had a chance to get self-conscious about it. It doesn’t have to be a perfect. The marker running dry on the last word of the sign, one kid mid-blink while the other is already halfway down the steps.
That’s what the morning actually looked like, and those are the pictures that get sweeter every year.
Take a couple, then let the phone go back in your pocket for a while. Because the best parts of that morning are the ones you can only get by being all the way inside them. The walk to the car with your hand on the back of their head. Whatever they said on the way that you’ll be repeating back to them for years.
A few other things worth photographing
Most of these can happen on any afternoon in the next few weeks, when nobody’s rushing and nobody’s nervous.
The supplies, before anything’s been used.
Think about what you remember from your own school years. The Lisa Frank notebook you had to have, the pencil grips, the binder with the clear plastic pocket on the cover where you slid in a photo of your crush from summer camp.
Your kid’s version is sitting on your kitchen table right now. Lay it out and shoot it from above while it’s all still shiny and new.
The first lunch, before it goes in the bag.
Same idea, different aisle. Yours was probably a Lunchable and a little pack of carrots with the ranch in the corner. Whatever your kid’s version is, lay it out on the counter and get the lunchbox in the frame too.
And while you’ve got it open, tuck a print from summer in there. Maybe a picture of the cousins doing something silly at the lake, or whatever’s going to make them laugh in the middle of a loud cafeteria.
A portrait on their terms.
This is the one they get to direct. Ask what they want to wear and where they want to stand, then actually let them decide, even if the answer is the front steps at the wrong time of day or the middle of their bedroom floor with the light coming in sideways. It’ll be the opposite of the school photo that comes home in October, where a stranger tells them where to put their chin in front of a mottled blue backdrop.
Their room, exactly as it is right now.
What’s on the walls, what’s piled on the nightstand. This is a photo you could take any week of the year, but the start of a school year is a great time to make it a habit.
The after, whenever you get it.
The shirt is untucked, the hair is nothing like it was at eight in the morning, and the backpack is already hanging off one shoulder.
And beyond the photos
The first day gets all the attention, but the transition is longer than one morning. Pick one of these. Ignore the rest with a clear conscience.
A late bedtime, one night before school starts
Sit outside until the porch light is the only light and the mosquitoes have found you both. A kid brings up something like this years later without being prompted, because you let a rule go.
Something you’re nervous about, too
Not a pep talk, an actual thing from your own week. It turns nerves into something everyone walks around carrying.
Your first day of the same grade
Let them interview you about it. Kids are hungry for evidence that you were once their size and equally unsure, and they will want details. What you wore. Whether you cried. Answer honestly, including the parts that went badly.
The first Saturday, kept empty
Don’t schedule anything. Let everyone be wrecked and horizontal in the living room. It’s the rare tradition that asks you to do less.
None of this is a to-do list, and if the only thing that happens this month is that everyone gets out the door with shoes on, we’d call that a win.
Have a great first week. And good luck with the sign. The chalk marker is not on your side.