Senior year is full of the obvious picture moments. The first day of school, Homecoming, Senior Night, prom, graduation…your camera roll is probably going to be FULL by May.

But some of the pictures you’ll end up loving the most probably won’t come from the big events. They’ll be the everyday things you’ve seen a thousand times and didn’t think to photograph because they felt so normal at the time. Your car sitting in its usual parking spot. Your friends at the lunch table. The hallway you walk down every day. Your mom in the kitchen while you’re getting ready to go somewhere.

Somewhere between the first day of senior year and graduation, a whole bunch of ordinary things quietly become “lasts.”

So this isn’t a list of perfectly posed pictures you need to recreate or one more senior-year checklist you have to complete. Think of it as a reminder to pull out your phone every once in a while and document the year while you’re actually living it.

At the Beginning of Senior Year

Start taking pictures before everything feels sentimental. Take the first-day-of-school picture, even if you’ve decided you’re WAY too old for your mom to make you stand by the front door. Get pictures while you’re painting your senior parking spot, decorating your senior jeans or getting ready for the first football game. Take one with the friends you’ve been going to school with forever.

There’s something really special about having pictures from the beginning of senior year, when graduation still feels forever away and you have no idea how quickly the next several months are going to go.

Fall Traditions You Only Get One More Time

Fall of senior year feels different. Football games, Homecoming, spirit week, pep rallies, marching band, cheer, Friday nights with your friends—whatever fall looks like at your school, document it.

Of course you’ll probably take the dressed-up Homecoming pictures, but don’t forget the other stuff. Take the blurry pictures in the stands. Get a picture of everyone crammed into somebody’s car afterward. Take one with your favorite teacher during spirit week or with your teammates before the season ends.

Not every picture from senior year needs to be Instagram-worthy. Some of them are just for you, and those may end up being the ones you love the most.

The Everyday Stuff You Don’t Think You’ll Miss

This might be the most important category on the entire list because these are the pictures nobody thinks about taking until those things aren’t part of everyday life anymore.

Take a picture of your usual lunch table, your best friend sitting beside you in class, your locker, your parking spot or the hallway you’ve walked down every day for four years. Get a picture of your backpack thrown in its usual spot when you get home or your car sitting in the driveway.

Take pictures of regular Friday nights with your friends when absolutely nothing exciting is happening. Take a picture of your room exactly the way it looks right now.

None of these things feel particularly important while they’re happening, which is exactly why we forget to photograph them.

Don’t Forget the “Lasts”

Senior year gets a little sneaky with this one because sometimes you know something is the last time while it’s happening. Your last Homecoming, last first day of school, last Senior Night or last game are easy to recognize.

But plenty of lasts happen without anyone announcing them. There will be a last regular Friday night with your high school friends, a last time you walk out of a classroom you’ve sat in for years and a last completely normal school morning when everyone is complaining about how tired they are.

You probably won’t catch all of them, and you don’t need to spend your entire senior year worrying about whether something might be a “last.” Just remember to take the picture when you can.

College Decisions + Whatever Comes Next

Whether you’re heading to college, trade school, the military, starting a job or still figuring out what you want to do, this part of senior year deserves pictures too.

Save the acceptance letter or email. Take pictures on your campus visits. Get the picture in your future-school sweatshirt after you finally decide where you’re going. If your family celebrates the decision in some way, hand someone the phone and get a picture of that too.

And if you don’t have everything figured out while it seems like everyone else does, that’s okay. Your senior year story doesn’t have to look exactly like somebody else’s to be worth documenting.

The People Who Made High School Yours

Please don’t finish senior year with 8,000 pictures of your best friends and zero pictures with some of the other people who made these years special.

Get a picture with your favorite teacher, coach, teammates, siblings and grandparents. Take one with the friend you’ve known since kindergarten and the friend you somehow didn’t meet until senior year.

Years from now, the people in those pictures may matter even more than what you were doing when the picture was taken.

Graduation Season

Once spring hits, everything starts moving FAST. There are announcements, banquets, awards, parties, cap and gown pictures and approximately one million things happening at the same time.

Take the obvious pictures, but photograph some of the behind-the-scenes parts too. Take a picture when the cap and gown arrives. Photograph the graduation announcements spread across the kitchen table. Get pictures while you’re shopping for your graduation outfit, decorating your cap or getting ready for the ceremony.

If you’re moving away after graduation, take pictures of the boxes piling up in your room. Photograph the graduation cards covering the kitchen counter and your cap and gown hanging on the bedroom door.

And definitely get the family picture on graduation day, even if everyone is hot, somebody is hungry and Dad is ready to leave.

Senior Moms, This Part Is for You

Mom, hand somebody else the phone every once in a while.

You’re probably the person documenting most of this year. You’re taking the first-day picture, Homecoming pictures, Senior Night, prom and approximately 947 graduation pictures. But someday your senior isn’t only going to want pictures of what senior year looked like. They’re going to want pictures of you in it with them.

Take the selfie in the car. Ask someone to photograph the two of you while you’re shopping for a graduation dress. Get in the picture at Senior Night instead of only taking pictures of everyone else. Take pictures together when neither of you is dressed up and nobody feels particularly “picture ready.”

I’d also encourage you to photograph some of the things that probably drive you a little crazy right now. The backpack by the door, the car in the driveway, the bedroom that is never quite as clean as you’d like it to be and the shoes constantly left in the wrong place may not feel photo-worthy today.

Someday, ordinary is exactly what you’ll want to remember.

And Yes, Take the Senior Pictures

Your phone is perfect for documenting all of those everyday pieces of senior year, and I genuinely hope your camera roll is absolutely ridiculous by graduation.

Professional senior pictures serve a different purpose, though. They give you an intentional pause in the middle of a year that moves incredibly fast and a chance to document who you are right now—your personality, your style, your confidence and this version of you before everything changes again.

And those pictures deserve to become more than files sitting somewhere on a phone or computer. Print them. Frame them. Put them in an album. Give them to your grandparents. Let your parents have the photographs they’ll still be pulling out years from now.

Senior pictures might be used for Senior Sunday posts and graduation announcements right now, but eventually they become part of your family’s story.

That’s one of the biggest reasons I’ve built the Brandi Price Photography senior experience the way I have. I don’t want to photograph this season, send you a link and leave you to figure out what to do with everything later. I want to help you create something from these pictures that your family can actually keep.

Take the Picture

You don’t need to spend senior year documenting every second because you’re afraid you’ll forget it. You should be living it, laughing with your friends, going to the games, enjoying the traditions and soaking up all of those ordinary days that don’t seem important yet.

Just every once in a while, remember to pull out your phone and take the picture.

I don’t think you’ll ever look back and wish you had fewer.

Class of 2027: If senior pictures are still on your senior-year list, I’d love to help you create something you’ll actually have long after graduation. Click here to learn more about the BPP Senior Experience.