Family Pictures

For some time now I have been the one BEHIND the camera in almost all the pictures taken from my camera. My son is in a digital photography class right now (which I personally think is really cool considering he's merely an 8th grader). So he's been snapping pictures all over the place!! Sometimes its for assignments, other times just for fun. But the short of it is, he's captured ME on camera more than once in the past weeks. And now that Momma has a snazzy new camera he's ALL about snatching it up and snapping picture after picture.

So today I got everyone dressed (I'd shopped for the outfits this past week) and we headed out in Victoria, TX to find a picture perfect place to capture a good family photo. Its been years since we posed for one professionally (I think the last one might have even been for a church directory way back in 1999). We headed down to Riverside Park and started at the duck pond. The place where over 14 yrs ago my darling husband proposed to me (or as he put it today.."kids, this is the place where a great tragedy befell my life"...smart ass! he got hit on the arm for that one)

I guess we got an alright family photo, though I think we might need to take another one with better lighting (and this time I'm wearing black, NOT cream!! Ugh!! You can see EVERY roll!!). I'm still deciding if I want to share that "treasure".

Then we started walking...and walking...and then more walking. The hubby and my daughter got quite a bit ahead of the boy and I. He and I kept stopping to take pictures. He has a landscape project he's finding pictures for and so I'd intermittently hand off the camera for him to capture what he wanted for the project. I stopped him at one point and sort of posed him (found a neat stump by the river and told him to squat and take a knee). This is how the shot turned out:
Granted his eyes are mostly closed and he's pretty much staring directly into the sun...but even given all that, I think it turned out pretty darn great! He looks SO handsome! hehe

I got one of my daughter there too, but it wasn't one of her best...I thought this was one of her top shots:
She wanted to pose on the vines the first time we walked past and saw another family snapping pics there. So I took the obligatory photographs.

We took several pictures of the two of them together (where they even seem like they like each other...HA! Isn't it amazing how pictures can lie so convincingly!!)


For me this is an exercise in being cheap, a tightwad with my wallet, a possessive owner of my checkbook. Yes, I've spent more than my fair share of the hubby's money on adornments for myself recently, but I draw the line at school pictures. More than half the time these little "treats" come home for me to buy BEFORE I see them. The one time I bought into this scam they send me HORRIBLE pictures!! My daughter had her glasses off ("But Mom, the camera guy said that my glasses would cause a glare, so he asked me to take them off"). Did said camera guy not notice that, at the time, when your glasses were off your eyes crossed horribly? And you wear those things ALL THE TIME, not just to read. How many school pictures has this guy taken that he's not learned in the ways of how to tilt glasses a bit to remove glare? Jeezers!! My son's were equally bad...his hair had been "fixed" by a helper to the camera guy and it looked like they'd just given him a chili bowl hair cut. Umm, this isn't how I sent him to school this morning! And why did we wait until AFTER lunch to take these pictures? I appreciate the effort of having hamburgers and fried for lunch instead of sloppy joes, but there's a BIG ketchup stain on his shirt and you can see where he repeatedly wiped his mouth on his SHOULDER!!!! Oh, and HIS glasses were ON!!! What tha....?!?!?!?!

So for years I've chosen to instead take out my own handy dandy digital camera and snap a few photos of my children. Then I use various programs on my computer, or at my local Walgreens, to print out wallet and other sizes to distribute to the relatives. I think the pictures are more personal this way too. And the more I practice using my new camera the better I hope to get at capturing their sweet faces in just the right light and instances to make unforgetable pictures that look damn near close to professional.

Hmmm...now how do I get "Mom" embossed in tiny gold letters in the lower right hand corner? I'll have to work on that one. hehehe

For everyone who stuck with me through this whole post, sorry it was a long one...here's the "best" family shot:
I think I'll learn to Photoshop this holiday season and subtract a few bumps from the right side of this picture...hehe Instant lipo!!!

Have a fabulous Thanksgiving friends!