Types of Photos
By Lynn Greenberg
When I first started as a yearbook advisor, probably like many people, I thought, how complicated can it be? Just take some photos – point the camera at some people, say “smile,” take the pic, and put it in the yearbook. Then I actually made a yearbook, and through that process and each year after, I realized there’s more to those photographs than I thought. There are a lot of different kinds of photos that need to be included in a yearbook; some are set up and structured, some are spontaneous, taken “at the moment,” and some are planned but captured in a split-second!
I want to share some information I learned about the different types of photos included in a yearbook and hopefully give you a reference guide to help you in your planning and knowledge about yearbooks. What you choose to include will depend on your school, the grades, history/traditions, and you as the creative advisor.
What type of photographs will you add to your book?
Let’s first define the types of photos in a yearbook:
Portraits – A yearbook portrait is a posed photograph of an individual. These are the standard posed, professionally taken, with set lighting, and typically, everyone is in the same pose. Portraits include teachers, staff, and students, including Senior portraits.
Group/Team – Team photography is also an arranged photo of a group, such as a team, club, student organization, or class officers. These can be taken by a professional photographer who takes the other portraits or by a yearbook staff member.
Staged or Posed – Staged photography is a type of photography where the photographer stages everything in advance to have full control over how their idea is conveyed.
Candids – A candid photograph is a photograph captured without creating a posed appearance. Catching people in the moment and acting naturally, not performing for the camera.
Sports or Action – Sports photography covers every sport and sporting event, capturing the action of a game and behind the scenes of the players. Action photography is a genre of photography that captures subjects in motion. It can include wildlife and sports photography, but the techniques can be applied to any number of subjects. Action photography captures things in motion, much like sports photography. It’s about catching something while it’s happening!
Event Coverage – Document a wide range of events, including academic ceremonies, cultural celebrations, music programs, art shows, science fairs, plays, musicals, dances, sporting events, social gatherings, etc. Use these to showcase the school’s wide range of activities.
Behind-the-Scenes – Offers a glimpse into the preparation and effort that goes into school events, performances, and activities.
Academic Moments – capture moments in the classroom during discussions, conducting experiments, presentations to represent the academic side of the school year.
Spirit and Pride – Capture moments of school spirit, pride and unity, like pep rallies, assemblies, spirit weeks, student sections at games, include students in the school colors or school apparel.
Traditions and Rituals – Document and celebrate school traditions and rituals, whether they are long-standing or newly established, showcase what makes your school unique and the history of the traditions that unify the student body past and present.
Environmental and Structural Shots – make sure to have photographs of the physical environment, photos of the outside of the school building, facilities inside and out to provide a sense of place and environment, include seasonal shots to show the changing season and different weather conditions throughout the year.
Milestones and Achievements – Include photos of achievement, whether it’s academic accomplishments, sports victories, or other notable milestones for individuals and groups
Storytelling Sequences – Capture sequences of photos that tell a story over time, allowing the reader to follow a narrative thread.
These first 3 types are a little more formal, organized, and planned:
Portraits – Work with a professional who can also offer a portrait package for your students, then provide the PSPA file with all the portraits in a format to import into your yearbook software. (PSPA is the format recommended by the Professional School Photographers’ Association.) With some portrait companies sales of the portrait packages are a fundraiser for your school. These portraits are the core of your yearbook!
Senior Portraits – a subset of portraits, these can be a little different from the traditional portraits. Some schools allow seniors to send in their own photos from their Senior photo shoot, and others have seniors dress in a specific way. Senior photos are usually a little larger than the rest of the grades.
Group/Team – These can be a bit tricky with a large group and different heights – getting a good team or group shot is trying to get close with everyone in similar or uniform heights. For example 2 or 3 rows, depending on the number of people in the shot, where each row can be close to the same height. Doing this will allow you to get a closer shot of the faces in the group. Seeing faces is much more important than getting the legs and shoes unless it is an important feature of the shot.
Staged or Posed – Want to showcase a specific event, a specific student, teacher, or department? You can always set up the pose, lighting, and environment and use props! These can become a feature on a page with some narrative writing; they can be fun, serious, or in between. They can be individuals or groups.
These next 2 types are best captured “in the moment” and are important, so be ready to snap that photo!
Candids – Making sure you capture those unplanned, spontaneous moments is what makes a yearbook special and engaging. Having someone there to take the photos is important, but more important is getting the photo, so use whatever camera you have with you – fancy or phone camera, as long as you capture those moments!
Sports and Action – A photo of an athlete in motion can be very tricky and it helps to know a few things when taking those action shots. The key to action photography is careful planning and a thorough understanding of your subject. Some tips for taking great action shots include: Pre-focus where you anticipate the photo will happen. Use a fast shutter speed to freeze the action and prevent blurry images, aim for a shutter speed of 1/500 and above for action, keep your subject in focus.
The next few are about setting a scene, telling a story, creating visual histories, and evoking a feeling and a moment in time.
Event Coverage, Behind-the-Scenes, Academic Moments, Spirit and Pride, Traditions and Rituals, Environmental and Structural Shots, Milestones, and Achievements, Storytelling Sequences
These types of photos are about showing the personality of the school through photos. There is a lot more room for creative expression compared to the portrait and team/group/club sections. These photos can be paired with captions, stories, quotes, and stories.
One of the reasons we create yearbooks is to capture that moment in time from championship games, to fashion and hairstyles, to friendships and activities, so adding these photos can help give you those important moments.
Take lots of photos. It’s better to have too many than not enough! Ask others to submit photos, and you can’t be everywhere all the time! I love having the ability to have parents or students send in the photos they’ve taken, as long as they were of a school event, school activity, or school club/team – not a personal event – Yes, I have some stories about being sent birthday parties, non-school club teams, even a wedding – some of which I was asked to include in the yearbook! You will have to spend some time going through them, but when you put the book together and find out you don’t have enough photos from certain events or time of year, you can’t recreate a moment that has already passed, so take all the photos you can and let others submit them too.
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