How To Get That "Perfect" Family Photo!

As a photographer, I frequently get asked how I manage to get photos of my family where all six of us look nice. Well, let me be the first to tell you it's a cinch! All you need is a large rambunctious family, a nice setting and someone to push the shutter button for you!

IF ONLY!

I have my own photography business, and even I have major trouble getting my whole brood to take a nice photo. See below for a fine example of a family photo shoot gone wrong:

1: Child 1 is picking his nose

2: Child 2 is chewing very blue gum

3: Child 3 is looking at someone/something off in the distance

4: Child 4 is just not having it and wants down NOW

Ironically, mom and dad look great! 

Luckily, we realized quite quickly that this was not the right time for a photo, so we let the kids run around for a bit and then regrouped. That, I think, is the key when dealing with kids in photos. Give them time, and don't try to force things. You'll just end up with gum in your hair photo. 

With a little help from dear Pappy, and some time, we had a mostly cooperative bunch. Is this the best family photo we've ever taken? No. Maggie looks stoned and Lucy is looking at her butt. Sam is making a weird face and Fred isn't smiling. Again, mom and dad look great. But overall it's a much more pleasing shot that the first one, isn't it now? 

Oh, and get some photoshop so you can digitally open eyes or switch heads when necessary! 

Or to simply amuse your friends and family.

My Hometown

New camera play time...

Beach Photo Insanity

Last week when we were on vacation I took a lot of photos. A LOT of photos. Everyone really wanted to get a shot of all of the kids on the beach together, and my mother-in-law, grandmother to all of the children, even bought them cute matching outfits for the occasion. So after a few days of plotting and planning, we got up one morning and hauled everyone to the beach. 

And each and every one of them was miserable.

Luckily, I have incredibly large memory cards and photoshop. So by making a bunch of grandmas and aunts dance around like crazy, we managed to get a photo with each kid smiling. Or at least not screaming. Then, through the magic of digital head swapping, we ended up with this! 

Six kids, mostly happy looking! I call that a great big win for me and my relatives. 

The Best Camera...

Is the one you have with you. I love my Canon, really. Truly. But sometimes, when I have to go to the kids' classroom for the 436th party, and I already have 436 parties worth of photos clogging up my hard drives (plural) sometimes I just want to leave the big DSLR camera at home. Or sometimes when a kid is doing something amazingly cute, and the only camera within reach is the one on my phone, you just have to snap away. Which is why all the aps for the iPhone make me so, so happy! Thanks to Instagram and Hipstamatic, I've been able to take some amazing photos using my phone. See?

See? All from my phone! MY PHONE!

Technology is amazing.

Peek-A-Boo World Champion

Let Them Be Little

All throughout my childhood I remember drinking from hoses, pumps and springs. This photo of Sam from our family reunion is one I've loved since taking it, and it takes me right back to being a kid. When I saw that the I Heart Faces folks were hosting a 'Let Them Be Little' theme, I just had to enter it!

Click on over to see all of the other submissions!

Life Occurring On A Whim

Life has been doling out big heaping doses of good stuff lately, with a small side helping of not-as-good-but-not-terrible stuff to go with. Here's a summary...

• A few months ago I started thinking about going pro as a photographer. (side note/promotion: check out my Facebook page and tell me what you think!) That ball has been rolling and bouncing quite nicely. I've had a few shoots with families, and this weekend I'm shooting a charity race. It's an exciting process because I'll be getting lots of exposure, and I even have a logo on the racers t-shirts! This all makes me feel very, very grown up and professional-like. On the flip not-as-good-but-not-terrible side, a bunch of my super-fun college friends from Philly are coming this weekend and I'm going to have to abandon them during the race time. Also, I will not be able to get rip roaring drunk on wine when they get here on Friday night, but that's probably a good thing!

• Around the same time as the photography stuff started to get serious, I also became more involved with a breastfeeding support group here in Mo-town. That's going really well, too! We had a booth at a baby fair this past weekend and we had lots of mommies and mommies-to-be stop at our area. Also, experiencing some of the WV crazies that came out for free stuff was enough entertainment for at least a month, and is worthy of a post of its own. On the not-as-good-but-not-terrible side, we were situated right outside of the (very loud) Halloween store, and since I was already but not really semi-recovering from a cold, I got crazy laryngitis. I still sound all sick and squeaky, and not at in that sexy sick way.

• Speaking of mommies-to-be, THE TWINS ARE COMING IN ONE WEEK! I had a family shoot scheduled for Sunday, but the daddy fell head, face and arms first into a pile of poison ivy, so I went and took some pics of my lovely sister-in-law instead! I cannot cannot cannot wait to meet those boys!

• Halloween looms, and just wait until you see what we've got planned for this year! We may even top last year!

• All of a sudden, Lucy is my good child again! She still screams and cries at any perceived offence, but her behaviour is much, much improved from summertime. She's digging hockey and tap class, and she recently discovered the simple joy of climbing trees.

• Fred never ceases to amaze me. Watch him pick up food and eat it as though he's been doing it forever, and not for less than a minute!

• I'm going to go ahead and end this post now, because there is no way I can possibly top that cuteness!

Chestnut Ridge Park

Puzzle Solvers

He's 86 and can't hear worth a damn. She's four and never stops talking. They are the perfect puzzle partners.

Works of Art and Nature

I remember when I realized that a house could be something more than four walls and a roof, and that was the first time I saw Fallingwater. I was barely a teenager, and I was awestruck. I'm older now, but the jaw-dropping beauty of this exquisite structure made me feel as small and meek as a child.

Freddie Fridays

When blue-eyed babies look up at the sky, amazing things happen!

Sky Eyes

I have this picture of Lucy from two years ago, and I still think of it as one of my favorites. Therefore, I'm re-posting it for I Heart Faces 'Beautiful Eyes' week.

Freddie, Month Five

Dear Happy Boy -

What a month, what a month, what a month! You gather no moss these days, Frederick! All you do is scooch and roll. Which is cute, for the most part. Even though you were able to roll from belly to back before you could roll from back to belly, you seem to have forgotten how to do that first trick. So when you are on your belly for too long you call out for assistance getting back to the back. Which is fine at 2pm. Not so fine at 2am. After last week's growth spurt and now this week's rolling issues, mom's feeling a little, um. TIRED. But I love you, so it's ok. For now.

Speaking of growth spurts. Once you started waking up two or three times a night all of a sudden, I decided to start giving you some cereal before bed. It didn't make you sleep any better, but you did find it quite nummy!

In fact, the nom-nom-noming on everything has reached epic proportions! Toys, hair, hands, boobs, more hair, it all goes into your mouth. Your big brother was totally freaked out the other day when he offered you his finger and you gummed it all up. Or, as Sam put it, you baby slimed him. Nice! On the plus side, when it's bedtime and I lay you down, you've started self soothing by sucking on your wrist/forearm area. It's not a typical place to suckle, but you seem to enjoy it. It's funny to watch your little face go from pissed (that your not sucking a boob anymore) to content to asleep as soon as you find that fleshy part of your arm.

Even though you still love the gymni, the exersaucer has been a cool place to hang out, too. I can even put put it on the porch so that you can watch your brother and sister have a water balloon fight. You're still not super keen on the great outdoors, but in the shade in the exersaucer you will tolerate it.

You still have some of your long hairs. I don't think I've mentioned this before, but ever since you were born you've had about a dozen or so hairs that are 2-4 inches long. They've always made me smile, but over time some of them have fallen out. This does not make me happy. They are so ephemeral and fine that I can't quite photograph them, but that's ok. I know they're there. When that last one goes away I may cry.

Fred, your sweet face is all I need to get me through the day. I wait on pins and needles when you nap, because holding you is like a drug I can't get enough of. What I'm trying to say is, I love you like a fat kid loves cake.

Mama

Freddie Fridays

In honor of World Breastfeeding Week.

And just beacuse he's cute.

Sam VS Lucy: Epic Sibling Front Yard Water Balloon Smackdown

Occasionally I pretend to be a fun mom, and today was one of those days. Why today, you ask? Because my two oldest children were driving me kee-razy. They live to terrorize each other. In doing so, they also terrorize me, but they do they realize that? NO! All day long all they do is fight FIGHT FIGHT! So, in a flash of parenting brilliance, I decided to let them battle it out, literally, on our front lawn. With water balloons.

There was no clear winner, so I had to intervene. That's the purpose of the smaller bowl with only purple and pink balloons: Mom's ammunition. I was able to get out some frustration by throwing things at them and they loved every minute of it! Everyone wins!

Unfortunately, they weren't able to leave it all out on the field, so to speak. The battle raged on even once we came inside, and while there were no bodily casualties, a limited edition re-issue star wars poster sustained some minor injuries. As a result, both parties have been sequestered until mom is done blogging further notice.

Food, Fun, Family and More Cake Pops!

This past weekend was filled with family fun. On Friday night we celebrated my little brother's 30th birthday, and his recent wedding, with 65 members of our immediate family. In honor of the happy couple, we made some of their favorite foods, like chicken and rice, rice and beans and HAM!

My brother and his first love, ham.

This was also the event for which the oft mentioned cake pop wedding cake was made. I have to say, that overall, I was pleased. There are things I would change if I were to do it again, but the end result was kind of pretty!

There were many more pops to be had, but I didn't consult with an engineering firm before constructing my tower, so it reached its load limit pretty quickly. Luckily it did not topple, and as long as you don't look too closely you can't see the drinking straws my cousin provided to help rig it up.

Luckily, they were plenty yummy, so no one minded that display was sub-par.

The party that night was a lot of fun, and for the first time in a long, long while, all of my cousins from my mother's side of the family were present. So of course we had to grab my grandparents and get a photo!

Saturday was the big family golf tournament, but that is a dude only event. Besides, I was home recovering from staying up until after 2am on Friday and baking dozens of cookies for the next day.

Then on Sunday we attended the big reunion picnic for my father's side of the family. All of my dad's brothers were there.

Seven boys and their dad.

There was drinking from the pump down at the farm...

Sack races...

Pie eating contests...

Tree climbing...

And face painting!

It's kind of like something that you might read about in a book and think, "What year does this take place, 1950? There aren't families like this anymore!" Well guess what? You're dead wrong. We've done this every summer for at least the past 30 years, and one day I'll be taking my grand kids to the farm for the family picnic.

Happy Cameraversary

See what I did there? I invented a new word! (Or so I thought. Damn google.)

Five years ago I got my hands on my very first DSLR camera. My Rebel XTi. We had just moved to Atlanta, and in my loneliness I rationalized this expensive thing that we couldn't really afford as a necessity. Something in my life was lacking, and I thought this camera would help fill the void. Little did I know that filling the void with a camera with an interchangeable lens system would lead to more and more voids to fill!

For almost two years I shot in total automatic mode, letting my camera make all the decisions for me. There were plenty of shots that I loved, but for each one I'm sure there were at least ten that I missed. After a while I decided that I needed to learn how to use the damn thing. I bought a new lens and got to work reading my manual.

Once I had dipped my toe into the infinite lake of lenses, there was no going back. I plunged in head first. The 50mm came into my life when I was pregnant with Maggie, and then during Freddie's gestation I got my 7D, which came with an awesome 28-135mm lens. And I just got a lovely 28mm f/1.8 lens that I'm in love with right now.

I'm in the process of setting up my home studio, too. Hopefully by early fall I will become an actual business, with a name and number and website, too!

I've learned so much in five years, and I know that in five years I'll look back and think, 'god, I didn't know anything back then!' I can only hope that future me will be as happy and fulfilled with this hobby-slash-obsession-slash-hopefully-profession as present me is.

I can't think of a better way to end this post than with some photos!