Time is a tricky thing. Ask any elementary schooler, and they’ll tell you the school year stretches on forever, an eternity of snack times, spelling tests, and recess victories.

But parents? We know better. One moment they’re teetering into kindergarten with a backpack bigger than they are, and before you know it, they’re swapping missing baby teeth for braces and glasses.

Let’s be honest—school picture day has a way of sneaking up on us. One minute, you’re packing lunches and rushing out the door, and the next, you're realizing your kid is about to be immortalized in a photo with bedhead and a cereal milk mustache. As a photographer, I want you to love these photos, not just tolerate them.

When I first started school portrait photography, I took a test shot of my son in our garage. I loved how the light hit his cheeks and his gaze off in the distance showed his inquisitiveness. What I didn’t realize, however, was how I’d feel just a few years later about this test image I had taken.