School Photos – My Style | St. Louis Photographer

Not Traditional

I’m not your traditional school photographer. Sooooo many things about the school photos that I offer to schools are different.

The first and maybe most obvious difference between me and other school photographers is that I use a plain black background. I think the black background allows your child to “pop”. I want you and everyone that sees these photos to notice one thing – your child. In my opinion, backgrounds with designs on them are a bit distracting and take away from the purpose of the photo – to see the child.

Another difference between me and other school photographers is that I strive to deliver a gallery of photos that shows off your child’s personality. I work extremely hard to get past the “I’m getting my photo taken smile” and get to the real smile that I know is there. I especially love getting past the smiles and getting to the smirks, silly faces, deep stares, giggles, shy faces, all of it!

How Do I Do It?

Well, that’s the hard part. With the younger kids, getting silly faces is relatively easy. A well timed fart joke is typically all it takes.

If jokes aren’t working, I have a series of prompts that I will try to get varied expressions. For example, I might ask the kids to give me their silly face or their crazy face. Once they give me that, they usually start to laugh, their genuine laugh and that’s the face I want.

I also ask for their “I love my mom” face and that usually gets me a sweet smile – usually.

As the kiddos get older, I have a harder time getting past the “I’m getting my photo taken face.” My go to at the tween/teen age is to ask about girlfriends/boyfriends. This gets me a shocked face and then usually a shy/embarrassed smile – GOLD!!!

Sometimes, a kiddo will ask if they can inject their own personality into their photo and my answer is always – YES! Check out this lovely teen who wanted the photo on the bottom right.

And then sometimes, I can’t get them to crack no matter how hard I try. At that point, I just go with it and take all the beautiful smiles that I can get. I know moms and dads will love those just as much.

All I know is that I love being a school photographer and I hope that the families love their photos.