As someone who snaps an awful lot of photos of my kids, you might be surprised to learn that I secretly love school photos. And despite the fact that a part of me is annoyed at forking money over every fall, I keep doing it. Every year. There is one main reason for this: the posed portrait is a moment in history that’s worth keeping. It’s been so since the dawn of photography.
Photography has changed dramatically since the days of film, hasn’t it? Our eldest was born at the tail end of the film era. Mark and I took lots of photos, even before she was born. I remember how expensive it was, how careful I had to be with the images to which I committed a snap of the shutter. Rolls of 24 and 36, printed 5 x 7 WITH borders via a mail order service; it added up. (What can I say? I had high standards even back then.) The move to digital changed the way we take photos. We are no longer so discriminating. Continuous burst means hundreds of photos can be shot in one single moment. Suddenly, photographs weren’t reserved for holidays and birthdays anymore. This is how we accumulated thousands of photos documenting the lives of our children; not just on special days, but every other kind of day. Yet I still make room for the school photos.
The beauty in the school photo lies in the inconsistent consistencies that arise from year-to-year. On one hand, all of the photos have a few things in common: they are posed, with even lighting and backgrounds, kids facing the camera and sitting up straight. But that’s where the similarities end. The subject might be wearing a favourite outfit along with a smirk or a smile or a funny face. Or maybe the camera caught them by surprise. Maybe the hair got brushed that day, maybe it didn’t. Maybe the collar was itchy or the sleeves were dirty because of a playground incident. Maybe there’s a gap-toothed grin or first glasses or shiny braces. They mark the years, and children’s personalities, in a way I can’t quite give up on.
The prints become a tangible reminder of the passage of time. As those wallet-sized photos collect in our wallets over time, we are able to witness your children’s growth in a way that a scroll through thousands of digital snaps might not satisfy.
These are the photos that will linger in boxes and in scrapbooks, be tucked away in their respective envelopes and eventually divided up and handed down to our children’s children, I’m sure, amid exclamations and squeals of surprise. My kids marvel at my crazy punkish grade ten haircut and they appreciate the story that goes along with it. They find it hard to imagine a time when their father had long hair. We still laugh about how Mark fainted during his class photo one year, although I’m sure it wasn’t funny at the time. (The photo caught him mid-fall if you can believe it.)
I’m glad we have our school photos, and I’m sure they’ll be glad to have theirs too.
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