52 weeks of the most tiring yet wonderful weeks of my life. Starting with week one I set out on a fun but exhausting task of capturing one photo of our son a week for the first year of his life.
The more mobile and opinionated he became, the harder this little creative photo adventure became. But being able to look back at our sweet and silly little boy is one of the greatest gifts I could have given myself.
I am so grateful for this project and would do it again in a heartbeat. But was I happy it was over at week 53? I was ecstatic! :)
The photos appear reverse starting with 52 weeks and lead into week 1. For holidays I tried to use different props which makes looking at the year as a whole pretty fun. Scroll through the photos below and at the end of this post I will be sharing a few tips I learned along the way.
Tips for Weekly Photos:
1. You will need A LOT of onesies. Though with all of the spit up you would have needed them anyways! But honestly, I really liked that he had a different "look" each week. I did repeat a few onesies but used a bib or other accessory to change it up. My favorite place for simple patterned ones were from Carter's. The few that had words were either from Target or Buy Buy Baby.
2. Accessories add more life to the photos. Bibs, hats, bows, etc. Adding in holiday references are also super fun and I was able to find holiday accessories for cheap from either Target or Walmart.
3. I used a real camera. Babies are wiggly. And I would not have gotten as clear photos with my phone. If you have the ability to use a real camera, this will make for better photos. I have a camera that allowed me to upload the photo to my phone wirelessly which made it easy for uploading to Instagram. I used Snapseed to edit the photos on my phone and added a white border so that you can see the entire photo when looking at my feed as a whole (versus a square).
4. Share weekly notes. My friend who did this project before me was so good at keeping notes about her son's first year. This is great for looking back on but also super helpful for referencing come a second child or wanting to share with a friend who asks when your child started doing ___. At first I was a little nervous about sharing so many details as a new mom. But after a few weeks I got over it and I am so thankful for this "journal" of my son's first year. Plus it makes filling in your baby book later super easy!
5. Consider your photo backdrop. I am lazy and made my son the easiest quilt to sew ever - chunks of fabric sewn together. Little did I know that this made for the perfect backdrop. I loved that I could spin it around for a different look while still keeping it all cohesive. Plus it was fun to see him grow over the weeks based off of how many blocks of fabric he covered.
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