‘Say cheese!’ Exploring consent and performance in the ‘shutter moment’ of <i>School Photo Day</i>

School Photo Day used art intervention as research method in a transdisciplinary project exploring children's experiences of school. Artist researchers invited junior school children to work with them to make portraits of themselves, in a process that closely emulated the prosaic school photograph day experience that is common in the United Kingdom. The project facilitated a ‘stage’ for collaborative performance, where children negotiated ‘making themselves’ in a space of complex power relations and representation, amongst entanglements of peer relationships, the time-space of school, and the wider communities of family and popular culture. In this article, we ask how this method brings new attunement and sensitivity to the way school life constructs children and how they feel at school. We discuss the double-edged ethical sword of making images with children, the risks and benefits of artistic research creation-approaches, and how their (deliberate) uncertainty challenges the ‘informed’ nature of informed consent.