Adventures in Picture Taking

We finally had an opportunity to take the kids’ Christmas pictures when the weather decided to cooperate. Since December rolled around it seems almost every day has been drizzly, rainy, foggy, and grey, and if we happened to have a sunny day, it was accompanied by biting cold winds. But with sunshine and 70 degrees in Sunday’s weather forecast, portraits were a must. If we had had forecasts for moods, hair, and attention spans, we might have planned otherwise. Unfortunately perfectly sunny weather doesn’t always coincide with perfectly sunny pictures.

Besides having a red chapped ring around his mouth and a bad case of bed head, Finn decided he would try to take a nap as we were driving to the location. When we tried to get him dressed in his outfit, the first tears of the day made an appearance. But, we got him settled down eventually and made our way to a favorite back alley to start snapping completely natural looking shots with elegantly windblown hair.

Then, an idea to stand Finn on Audrie’s shoulders, which was apparently painful set off the second set of tears for the day. So while trying to let one child calm down, I snapped some individual photos of the other, every one of them showcasing this natural smile…

After almost calling it quits [15 minutes and 100 goofy pictures in], still trying to dry one child’s tears, we moved onto another location.

It wasn’t until after a few more failed tries to cheer Miss Audrie up, and the discovery of some pretty rocks that things started to turn around…sort of. It seemed hunting for rocks and throwing them in puddles was much more exciting than posing for pictures. But, at least there were no more tears.

We eventually moved down the alley a bit and found some interesting doors for backdrops, but getting someone to stand in front of them, well, let’s just say he had his own ideas for the shots. There was…

posing…

jumping…

and a little bit of dancing.

We moved on yet again, and eventually got some card-worthy shots.

After an hour and 348 pictures, we decided to take one last picture on top of a trash can and call it quits.

It was quite an adventure. It was rough. It was tiring. It was frustrating. And it was hilarious. I have to say the trade off for not getting that “perfectly sunshiny picture” was getting 349 pictures that make me laugh every time I look at them. Plus who’s to say I didn’t get that perfect Christmas portrait after all?