Last year there were more photographs taken in the world than in the whole of the rest of photographic history put together.

When I heard this statistic I have to confess I wasn’t surprised. Most of them you see, I think have been taken by me.

I must have taken thousands. It’s the mobile phone thing. I now, like everyone else, carry a camera with me everywhere I go. I don’t just mean on my travels to work or Ipswich (flash confession - I’ve been to Ipswich and enjoyed it), I mean to the kitchen, the toilet, I was listening to the radio on it in the bath the other day. Everywhere I go I have a mobile phone and I, therefore, have a camera. Put this phenomenon of the modern age together with a very indulgent father and you have the ideal recipe for literally thousands of photographs. The indulgent father thing means that at every micro stage of my child’s development I feel emotionally compelled to document it with the ubiquitous photograph. Milestones like his first steps, his first journey on a bike, his first day at school, are swamped by thousands of other micro milestones that at the time seem astonishingly significant to me but in reality are just part of the humdrum of growing up.

Not only that, they are for the vast majority pretty dreadful photographs too. Endless pictures of half a back disappearing round the corner or a blurred face grinning in front of a panoramic multi-storey car park. When my phone tells me I have no room for anymore they go from my phone, to my computer and there they sit. Do they get printed out? Never. Do I look at them on the screen? Virtually never.

Maybe for these reasons the annual school photograph, whilst it is just one image amongst thousands I have of my child is always exciting and important. This is the one that goes on the mantelpiece and is sent to relatives. There is something about the formality of the portrait that clearly separates it from my spontaneous and endless snapping. When he comes home clutching those sample miniatures in a shiny polythene sleeve there is always a sense of pride and anticipation.

What better way to illustrate this celebration of the school photo than a picture of a pupil from Watford Fields Junior School in 1971.

Gazette: