Mother's Day: What to Give Your Photographer Mom Who Has It All

If your mom isn’t just the family photographer, but the family’s director of photography, production designer, and art director as well, chances are she’ll appreciate a photo-related gift for Mother’s Day. But if she’s the type of mom who loves to research and investigate every purchase she makes, you might want to think outside the box to find a gift that surprises or excites her or is just something she doesn’t already have. Here are some suggestions for Mother’s Day photo gifts for the mom who has it all:

Fun Little Digital Point & Shoot Cameras

Now that the digital point & shoot is back in style, we’ve seen the release of several inexpensive, lo-fi cameras whose quirky simplicity melts even the coldest hearts. Since Mom’s going to be taking pictures anyways, why not add the retro flair to go along with it? We recommend the Flashback ONE35 V2 Camera and the Kodak Charmera Key Chain Digital Camera. The Flashback is a “digital disposable,” taking its design cues from film disposable cameras and limiting users to a capture button, a viewfinder, a flash, and a winder dial— with no LCD screen for instantaneous photo review. Like a conventional film disposable, the camera allows 27 exposures on its 13MP sensor before requiring users to download the images to their phone via a Wi-Fi connection. Built-in filters give the images the nostalgic quality of yesteryear.

The Charmera, on the other hand, is a key-chain blind-box item that will surprise her as much as it delights her. This tiny, 80’s-inspired digital camera offers lo-fi delights in seven charming design patterns, with frames and filters to add atop the blocky bitmap-style images. Either camera is sure to be as transformative of the current moment as it is transportive to a time when candid photography still felt spontaneous and organic.

Rolls of Film

On the other hand, if Mom is more of an analog girlie, get her some film. You can never have enough, really. Check out our 35mm options here, or you can grab her some instant film, like Instax or Polaroid.

Instax Printers

Speaking of Instax, FUJIFILM’s best-selling instant film isn’t just limited to image capture. The stock can also be used to create prints of any image saved to your smartphone, whether taken with a different camera or downloaded from the internet. There are many options, each associated with one of the Instax sizes (mini, Square, and WIDE), but we’ll recommend the instax mini Link+ for its capabilities, including the ability to sync with a linked Pinterest account, and the instax mini Link 3 for its playful, aesthetic design that comes in white, pink, and green colorways.

Cricut Maker 4 Smart Cutting Machine

Mom’s photography isn’t just an end in itself, either. With the Cricut Maker 4 Smart Cutting Machine, it can become the foundation for a new hobby, a new business, or a lifetime of keepsakes. The Maker 4 is compatible with more than 300 materials, making it an incredibly versatile tool for almost any custom project. From stickers to shirts, mugs to decals, the gift of a Cricut is the gift of endless possibility.

Photo Frames

Of course, sometimes, the photo is enough. Commemorating special moments with loved ones is more than enough justification to a lifetime of photography, and those images deserve to be displayed with pride and love, whether it’s with the fridge intimacy of the Canetti Design Group Double Heart Magnet Frame or with a digital picture frame like the Cozyla 17" Wi-Fi HD Large Digital Frame. Compared to a single printed photograph, or even an album or portfolio, a digital picture frame is only limited by the size of its hard drive in terms of the number of images you can showcase. Regardless, you’ll always have the option to update and replace these images in the future. Specific to this holiday, whether it’s her children or her award-winning investigative project, give Mom a chance to show off a little.

Pelican AEGIS Travel Toiletry Bag

Manufacturers of rugged gear-hauling equipment aren’t front of mind on Mother’s Day, but we’re including this handy Pelican AEGIS Travel Toiletry Bag for its organizational utility. Sure, it’s marketed as a toiletry bag, but its multiple zippered pouches and sections make it an excellent way for a mom to keep her personal stuff, her mom stuff, and her photo stuff equally separate and accessible. Available in black, indigo, charcoal, and sand colorways, the travel bag works on its own or tucked away in a larger, perhaps chicer, bag.

SanDisk Creator Series Storage

Whether it’s digital photos or film scans, Mom has got to put it all somewhere. SanDisk’s Creator series offers several external storage options, from solid state drives to memory cards to flash drives, all optimized for content creation and sharing the same innovative design language and dedication to portability.

The most unique and useful of the bunch just might be the Creator Phone SSD, offering 1TB or 2TB of storage and attaching directly to MagSafe-compatible smartphones. It’s a great way to back up the endless accumulation of content we all create on our phones. Plus, if Mom’s main point of exhibition for her photography (like most of us) is social media, the Creator Phone SSD offers a convenient and portable way to keep large image files immediately at hand while still stored externally.

Straps and Harnesses

The loadbearing straps and harnesses that make endurance shooting possible can also be a source of accessorizing and style. Straps like this red-and-white floral Jodi Head Woven 2" Brocade Vintage 70s Pattern strap or the polk`a-dot USA GEAR TrueSHOT neck strap offer a bit of flair and whimsy in a design world that skews more utilitarian. But if Mom is dual-wielding cameras for weddings, events, or maximal birthday party coverage, the utility of the HoldFast Gear MoneyMaker 2-Camera Harness comes into stark relief. The harness structure allows for the weight to be more evenly distributed across the back and shoulders, and the design affords the attachment of other devices in lieu of a second camera.

Posing Plushies

These props help grab the attention of young children for the sake of portraits. The entrepreneurial backstory of manufacturer Shutter Hugger says it best, “Two photographer moms faced with the challenge of chasing down and photographing their own children came up with Shutter Huggers as an ingenious way to grab children's attention and focus it right on the lens.” For mothers of newborns and toddlers, the company makes lens-compatible and smartphone-compatible products to cover all the professional and personal applications, respectively.

A New MacBook Neo

Especially if Mom already owns an iPhone and is committed to the Apple ecosystem, this newest laptop product has enough power to handle the entire workload of a photography small business, like image editing and document creation, as well as personal downtime activities like web browsing and streaming. Available in silver, blush, citrus, and indigo colorways, it seems like the only place left for Apple to innovate was in affordability. And let’s face it—if Mom deserves anything, it’s something expensive and new.

To learn more about gear and other great gift ideas, check out our other articles and guides on the B&H Explora page.