This week I forced my family through some major photo shoots. I no professional, but I managed to get a few keepers, due more to my children's cuteness than my own photographic prowess. First came Amber, on her birthday.
Then later that afternoon I did a sibling photo shoot with all three of my cuties. That one took a bit more work. I didn't dress the kids up in coordinating clothes or anything; I just made sure that the hair wasn't too messy and the clothes didn't clash too much and started clicking the camera. After our first seven minute session everyone came inside and I looked through the pictures. They were no good--as in nothing could be salvaged except for laughs. So I lured the kids out into the backyard a second time with the promise of candy corns if they would humor me again. I brought chairs for them to sit in and that was the magic touch. Laa! They didn't all smile angelically all at once ever, but I kind of like the more natural look we ended up with. I fed Amber Cheezits through the whole 9 minute session because it was late afternoon, the hour of cranky irrational doom for all small folk.
Attempt #1:
I let Jay and Rose each come up with a pose to try. This was Jay's idea.
This was Rose's pose idea.
And yes, this was my pose idea. Well, the theory was good...
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| Left: Pinterest photo pose inspiration. Right: Pinterest FAIL. There's always at least one! |
Attempt #2:
Amber's Cheezit-mouth grimace: classic.
Every time Jay or Rose said something, Amber would whip her head to the side and look.
Hands down my favorite.
You can only ask so much of kids after 4pm...
The next day (Thursday), Jeff and Jay had no school so I planned for us to have a little family photo shoot that afternoon at nearby Westside Park, a mile from our house. This was The Big One of the year, and after last year's
multiple failures and resulting photo apathy in the kids, I was very careful in my preparation for the family photos so we could get them right the first time this year. I dug up some semi-coordinating clothes from our wardrobes. I researched family of five photo poses on Pinterest and narrowed it down to three possibilities.
We were watching good ole Spencer (age 8) on Thursday, and my plan was to put him to work: set the camera on the tripod, use the remote control trigger to take pictures, and have Spencer jump around behind the camera to get the kids to look and smile. Then at the last minute Jeff's sister Steph called for a favor and ended up volunteering to come help, like the all-star she is. Her two small energetic kiddos were asleep in the car, so it was perfect timing. I was overjoyed. We've never had a real person take our fall family pictures before! So we handed Steph the big camera on the auto portrait setting and had her push the button. It was WAY easier than positioning the tripod and using the remote! And my Pinterest pose research actually paid off for once--I skipped over all of the adorable fancy ones and picked simple, realistic poses that we could assemble quickly.
We only had to do five or six takes before we were done. It was a miracle. Of course every time we broke up the pose to check the pictures, the kids scattered far and wide to the playground and it took a while to gather them up again. That's the only reason this thing took more than ten minutes. As usual, the pictures weren't perfect, but I figure it was the best we could do in fifteen minutes as amateurs. We even found a pretty tree to stand by in the park, even though the few trees we do have in our town have not been quite as vibrant as usual this autumn. Last year I withheld the Christmas card photo until after the cards had been mailed, but this year I'm posting all of them. You never know which one will be on the card--I don't even know yet!
Happy sigh.
