04/12/2026
I have talked a lot about why I strongly believe that Modern School Photography is the best way to approach school photo day, but today I wanted to chat about what the difference is between traditional yearbook photos and modern school photos. I have been a Grapevine school photographer for the past 4 years and have provided both traditional and modern school photography across the DFW area for kids ages 6 weeks – 12th grade.
What are Traditional Yearbook Photos?
These are most likely what you remember school photos being as a kid. They are a single pose of your kid taken from the mid chest to just above their head. They typically are on a speckled blue, brown, or gray background, and with some companies, you can switch the background to a variety of things. I think one year I saw an American Flag and an Eagle alongside a Winter Wonderland Scene. With big box school photography companies, they’ll bring in a photographer, and their job is to snap one photo of each kid as quickly as possible. They are not typically concerned if the child just came in from recess, spelt spaghetti sauce on their shirt at lunch, or their hair is falling out of their ponytail.
There is an absolute place for school photography that is one simple photo per child, and I can provide this type of photography for your school. But I will make sure their hair isn’t crazy, that all the snot is wiped away (schools are germ factories!), and if the pose isn’t working, we’ll change it quickly. My backgrounds are simple, so the student is the highlight, and I aim to get a genuine smile as quickly as possible.
