Am I the only parent that dreads family portrait day? Are there any families that look forward to it every year? I have to say that it is not my most favorite day of the year. I do not look forward to trying to get everyone to look in the same direction, to smile, to keep their eyes open, and to look happy. It is difficult. My goal is always to get a final product of beautiful pictures that capture the essence of each individual. And with seven people, I imagine this ideal scenario is highly atypical, but I still strive for it.
One of our family portraits.
Luckily, I have a very patient photographer do the work. She is my mother. She has a very nice digital camera, which allows you to take tons of shots without worrying about film development. She can also see if she got anything worth while by scrolling through her shots.
My mom’s departure date was drawing near so I had to quickly schedule the photo shoot. We did it Sunday afternoon on our property. Everyone was pretty much dressed for pictures because of our morning church service. This past year my children have gotten very involved with horses. Therefore, we decided to all dress western. Each child also took individual photos with their horse.
My mom tried all different kinds of shots. Some on an interestingly crooked tree. Some on the top of a wooden fence. Some in the pasture as we walked away from her. Some of our boots. Like I mentioned before, some with horses. During our photo shoot, she took 221 photographs.
We began with the family portrait first. Then we took the youngest child’s pictures next. We did not want him to become tired and uncooperative. It was almost nap time. Then we continued through to the oldest. At thirteen Clayton is able to wait his turn, but getting him to smile is always a challenge. This year he fully cooperated and I was thrilled.
After the final shot was taken, my husband and I treated the kids to a soft drink. They do not get them everyday so they consider it a treat. Then I downloaded the photographs to my computer. I choose the best ones of each child, my husband and I, and our family. Then I begin cropping/resizing the photographs to an 8 x 10. Next I save those on a CD. Then I get them developed in whatever sizes I want as well as order as many copies as I want to have made.
A not perfect, but sweet family portrait. It is my favorite one this year.
Last year I skipped the last part and just printed the photographs I wanted on my home printer. I used good photograph paper. It worked well, but my mom’s copy faded badly. She did not realize that the sun was shining that much on our picture. For this reason I am getting them developed professionally. It is still relatively inexpensive.
Family and individual photographs make good gifts for Christmas. But most importantly, they capture your family at that moment. They help you to remember your children at each phase of their life. I enjoy looking back through our past family portraits. Each one is special to me. It is fun to see how much our family has grown in height and in number throughout the years. Regardless of how stressful picture day is it is well worth the effort.
