Making of the monarch butterfly school photo

See an overview of my other three school class photos: the bicycle, the cupcake, and the worm. And read more about how the class photo is made.

Here is one of my all-time favorite photographs. Unlike the last school photographs, where I was standing on the roof of the school, this was photographed using a drone. Technology has really improved in just a few years. The photograph is by Scott Stoll with Tim Spanagel of MasseyGreenAVP. Tim needed two licenses to fly the drone. One from the FCC and another to fly over or come within 500 feet of people. Nonetheless, I said, “Play it safe and don’t fly overhead.”

This photograph was the most difficult to arrange. We needed permission from every parent and the school district. Plus, the weather wasn’t cooperating. We had to cancel several times, including March 17th, which was fortunate because the kids would have all been wearing green for St Patrick’s Day. In this photo, we asked the kids to wear their Cincinnati Bengals’ gear, which is orange and black, just like a monarch butterfly.

Below you can see more preparation. In the first picture, using Google Earth, I plotted out two potential locations. Unfortunately, the grassy field is muddy all spring, so we used the roundabout at the school entrance.

This next photo is the final location. The footprint of the butterfly is about the same size as the other three photographs. I made a much more careful measurement using the scale in Google Earth and the circumference of a circle to estimate about 2 people per meter.

Here you can see the butterfly taking formation. The principal was excellent at organizing everyone. We started with the oldest kids first because they could stand there the longest. The kindergartners came out last.

Afterwards, project coordinator Nuria Lopez donated a 24×36″ framed class photo to principal Dr Simmons. I hope it will be a timeless piece of art for the school office. Also, as you can see above, we made the front page of the local newspaper.

This photograph was so popular that it made the cover of the local newspaper and the school district website. These are good examples of all the ways your own school can maximize this school project.