Team Photos

From the earliest age, a part of playing team sports is the team photo. For some teams, it is a professional photo which the parents are then encouraged to purchase. Other times, the coaches may arrange the children before or after a game and have the parents take the photos. Either way, these posed group photos are an important memory, but can be tricky to include on a scrapbook page. The challenge is that these large group photos tend to lead to boring scrapbook pages, which we all want to avoid. Here are some suggestions for adding interest to your team photo pages.

One way to scrap these team photos is to include them in a summary page about the season or a particular game or tournament. In my layout, "All about the Team," I included a variety of photos from the end-of-season spring tournament. In addition to the regular posed team photo, I included another team photo of the boys relaxing together between games, an action shot of my son, and a photo of the coaches. By combining these different types of photos, we get insight into the relationship between the boys and their coaches, and avoid the structured feeling of just a posed photo. I added the team roster and a couple of patches in place of journaling.

Another option is to frame the team photo with fun embellishments. For this layout which includes a professional photo of my son's team, I added a fun banner and an action shot to lighten the stiff feeling of the professional photograph. I generally have many action shots of my son and I often like to print them small and add them to these team layouts.

Another option is to add humor to the page. I've seen some team photos where no one smiles, including the coaches, and even one where all of the players actually looked angry.  In this situation, I assume the professional photographer may have been somewhat annoying, although it could be because the team was losing. I try to avoid scrapping these bad or angry photos, but if it's all you have, then make the best of it. Try adding some captions or a humorous title making light of the situation.

In other occasions, the taking of the team photo may be too much fun. This year, my son's coach decided to pose the boys for their team photo on a beautiful day when everyone was present and the team had just won a big victory. The boys were not interested in staying still and it took a long time for the coach to arrange them. I took about 40 shots and used some of the outtakes in my layout. My son helped me pick exactly which outtakes to use and I have a layout that includes both the "official" team photo and ones that give insight into the personality of the players. Of course, if you do add humor to the team photo page, be careful to ensure that the humor will not be offensive to your child or people who might see your scrapbooks.

For team photo pages, I like to use sports-themed papers and embellishments combined with ones that match or complement the team uniform. If possible, try to collect team or tournament memorabilia (such as patches or buttons) and add them to the team layout. The memorabilia will enhance the memory and add texture to the layout.

I hope I have given you some ideas to more creatively scrapbook those annual team photos. I would like to leave you with one additional suggestion: if you do include a team roster on your layout and plan to post it on the Internet, photograph or scan your layout first so you are not including the last names of other people's children.