The same photo, every month

The whole idea in one sentence

Pick a place in the house and photograph the child there, from the same spot, once a month. Each photo on its own is nothing. The twelve together are the most striking thing you will have by the end of the year.

Choosing the place

• Something that will not change: an armchair, the corner of the sofa, the same wall.
• With a fixed object beside it to give scale. A cushion, a teddy, the plant.
• Near a window, so the light is similar in every month.
• Avoid the cot: it leaves the scene halfway through and the series breaks.

So the photos match

• Mark the floor with tape where you stand. It looks excessive and it is what saves the series.
• Always landscape, or always portrait. Mixing them ruins the layout later.
• One fixed day a month, the monthly birthday, so it never becomes a decision.
• A monthly alarm on your phone. The series dies of forgetting, never of unwillingness.

At the end of the year

Put the twelve together in a grid of four by three. It is the image the whole family will want, and it is the one that ends up on the wall. If you miss a month, carry on anyway: eleven photos still tell the whole story.