Christmas Pictures 2014

Cloudy with heavy drizzle and fog....not the ideal weather conditions for an out door photo shoot. I have a knack for scheduling my photo shoots on the most inopportune days. In this case, though, I actually checked the weather [I usually don't] mainly because Monday's blustery cold front caught me off-guard. Thursday, though partly cloudy, would be pleasantly warm compared to the other days, and I was relying on that weather report [as much as you can rely on a weather report] to hold true. But, as fate would have it, the heavens opened up and saturated my plans. I called my mom to get the weather report in her area [the location of the shoot], and it hadn't yet started to drizzle. A ray of sunshine in an otherwise gloomy forecast. Instead of taking a much needed shower, I herded my children into the car and sped to Taylor to beat the rain [within the speed limit, of course].

I still had to get my children ready.

When they were dressed to perfection, we jumped in the car to head to the downtown area, and we were met with, not the expected drizzle and gloom, but bright, smile inducing sunshine. I'm pretty sure I heard a chorus of angels singing at that moment.

I've written many times about the challenges of trying to get good pictures of three children together whose age differences mean drastic differences in height as well as the ability to cooperate. Getting all three to look at the camera and smile at the same time is near impossible, especially when you have one who loves to talk, another who likes to make silly faces, and a third who just wants to pick up rocks, or run away, or start an impromptu game of tag in an alleyway. But what I find when I scroll through the hundreds of pictures I've snapped is that the ones I favor most are not the ones that are perfectly posed. I love the candid shots that capture what happened in between the times of trying to get that "perfect shot." Hidden among the "in between shots" are the twinkling smiles, the familiar expressions, and the wonderful moments that, if you just keep clicking, you might be lucky enough to catch. 

xo

nessa dee

Christmas Pictures

Snapping a good picture of a tween, a tyke, a toddler, and a Trixie together is not the easiest task. Running a marathon might be slightly easier.

I think individual pictures will grace our Christmas cards this year.

xo

nessa dee

Guess what I attempted yesterday...

It's not easy getting a sleepy baby, an active six year old, and a mortified [of the whole situation] tween to cooperate for Christmas pictures. But it's done, I have 400 pictures, and hopefully one good one for our Christmas card. If not, I can always use one of these...

I have no idea why Audrie was mortified. Seriously.

xo

nessa dee

Christmas Pictures 2011

xo

nessa dee

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?