Photo ideas by month · month 12
12 months old: photos worth taking.
The last month of the first year, and the one everybody photographs. Take the cake pictures, obviously, but take the quiet ones too: the shoes by the door, the same chair for the twelfth time, the arm that used to hold a whole baby along its length. This is the month the series you started in January finally becomes a thing you can print.
Month 12
Things worth photographing this month.
The cake, before
Photograph the cake on the tray in front of her while it is still intact and she is still deciding — hands hovering, one candle, everybody quiet. Shoot at tray height from across the table with the window to one side rather than behind. You get about four seconds of before.
The cake, after
Then let it happen and keep shooting: fists through the sponge, icing to the elbows, the look of a person who has understood something. Stay at the same height and let the mess fill the frame. Wide enough to include a grandparent laughing is even better.
The candle and the faces around it
Turn away from the cake for one frame and photograph the ring of faces watching it — that is the picture nobody else at the table will take. Keep the candle in the corner of the frame for the light. Hold steady; low light and a room full of movement need a braced elbow.
First shoes by the door
Set the shoes he actually walks in beside the biggest pair in the house, on the mat by the front door, and shoot straight down in daylight. No feet in them. It is the plainest scale photo of the year and it needs no explaining.
The forearm, one year on
Remember the month-one photo of a baby lying along a parent's forearm. Try it again now, in the same room and the same light, and let it be funny — legs everywhere, nobody fitting. Shoot from the side at arm height so the two photos line up.
Twelve months in the chair
The last one. Same chair, same spot on the floor, same time of day, and this time she may well climb into it herself. Take the frame, then take one of her getting out of it. The series is finished.
Then and now, side by side
Put the first photo of the year next to the last one — the curled newborn against the person eating cake. Match them for shape if you can: both upright, or both from the side, or both in the same chair. Two frames touching say more than either one alone.
When you have the photo
Turning this month into a keepsake.
This is what the year was for: put all twelve into the monthly photo collage maker for one print-ready page, let the milestone photo maker label the twelve-month frame, and pair the newborn photo with today's in the then-and-now maker.
The milestone photo maker reads the birth date and the photo date, writes the exact age onto the picture, and lets you drag everything into place before downloading it for sharing or printing. The monthly photo collage maker holds twelve squares, one for each month of the year, and gives you a print-ready page at the end of it. For the first-and-last pairing, the then-and-now photo maker puts two photos side by side and calculates both age labels for you. All of them run in your browser, so the photos never leave your device.
Every photo, filed at the age it happened.
Start a private family timeline free, and stop hunting for the month it belongs to.
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