Family Photos on a Homeschool Budget

While family photos are a keepsake you’ll cherish for life, photographers in this day and age tend to be quite pricey. Though their skills inspire and surely deserve compensation, sometimes the price tag just isn’t realistic. Here are four tips to help you preserve precious family memories while keeping your homeschool budget in check. Share the list with a friend or extended family member who’s willing to serve as your photographer and see what images can be captured.

Use household props. Though there’s certainly a line between cute and overkill, with a little imagination, household items can serve as appealing props in family photos. Stools or crates work well for varying the height of the subjects in your photo. Sheets hung from the ceiling and draped across a portion of the floor provide a sleek, uniform backdrop that prevents distracting backgrounds. Baby blankets and alphabet blocks add a cute touch to newborn photographs.

Shoot for shade. Though many people instinctively like to be outside when it’s sunny and bright, shade is a photographer’s best friend. Open shade, which is found in an area completely shaded from direct sunlight yet illuminated by reflected light, is ideal. It can be found in the shadow of a building, near the edge of a thick canopy of trees, and in a variety of other locations. Check out a few tips from photographer Shari Hanson for using open shade to your advantage when you shoot outside.

Take advantage of “The Golden Hour.” Important in outdoor photography, the golden hour is an approximate one-hour window of ideal light that exists just after sunrise or just before sunset. Set low in the sky, the sun casts a soft, even light over your subjects, creating a warm image with minimal contrast.

Keep clicking. We live in the age of digital photography, and the delete button is a beautiful thing! Though only some of your photos will be picture-perfect, it’s better to capture several sets of tears and one priceless smile than to miss that moment of joy altogether.