One of my major goals in life is to be a good husband and father. In some areas I excel. In other areas I struggle. This is one of those areas.
Hang on a second…
Hey sweetie! Instead of reading this, maybe you should go clothes shopping, or go get a pedicure. OK? Great! Have fun!
I’m back. Let’s cut to the chase: We are taking a family portrait tonight. Need I say more? I try and be interested and supportive, but I just can’t live a lie. Yes, I know that it is important to my wife and for our posterity, but I truly can’t bring my self to care. I don’t even have a particle of desire to go through the process.
Now you can’t tell my EC any of this, because it is patently unfair and unkind, and I need time to repent. I realize that this picture is an important one. I am not completely clueless. It is important because next week, FOML3 leaves for the MTC, and next month, FOML2 gets married. This is probably the last portrait of our nuclear family that we will take. See, I do appreciate the gravity of the situation.
Besides, my EC has been working like crazy to get this done. First, she tracked down which photographer she wants to use – she even offered to go through the online portfolios of the finalists with me, because she is sweet like that. Like I’m gonna do that. You want me to claw my eyes out? I graciously demurred, because I trust her judgment implicitly. She scouted locations, made wardrobe decisions, and somehow managed to schedule all seven of us – which is a minor miracle. She has done a fabulous job. I know that when we get the finished product, she will be happy. I know that when we get the finished product, and the check has cleared, I will be happy.
There are just some things about the whole process and the latest fads that make me apathetic. Namely, the process and the latest fads. I will try and explain myself. (Guys, you can probably skip this. I think genetically you are already pre-disposed to understand.)
• First, I feel compelled to point out that buying an expensive camera at Costco and having Photoshop and a website does not a photographer make. Also, I have learned that “specializing in natural light” is code for “can’t afford lighting equipment.”
• It probably was not a good idea to give me the book “Awkward Family Photos” for Christmas. (Link here) It only served to reenforce my already negative perceptions.
• I don’t get the contrived locations. People place their families in the weirdest settings because they think it looks “artistic”. One man’s “art” is another man trying not to laugh punch out his nose. Thankfully, my EC is very wise, and none of the following conversations have ever occurred between us. But that doesn’t mean they won’t sound familiar to some of you.
“Hey kids! Let’s get our family portrait taken in front of an old barn!”
“Mommy, what’s a barn?”
“Yeah, I’ve never seen one except on TV.”
“But there is this great rusted-out tractor…”
“Why don’t we just stand in front of the Suburban – it’s got a lot of rust.”
or
“Wouldn’t it look nice to all be standing in a wheat field?”
“Honey, the nearest wheat field to our house is in Nebraska.”
“Maybe, but the weeds in the vacant lot look a lot like wheat. Besides, it has religious overtones.”
“That lot has dog poop overtones.”
or
“I saw a fabulous graffiti-covered wall that would make a great backdrop.”
“I love it – nothing screams normal Mormon family like graffiti. Maybe we could all flash gang signs like the girls do at camp.”
“Grrr.”
or
“How about we find an old couch and put it in the middle of the desert. It would be so artsy.”
‘That sounds good – if we can use OUR couch, and leave it there when we are done.”
or
“Let’s get a portrait done this summer at the beach.”
“We haven’t been to the beach in eight years.”
“But it would look so fun!”
“I guess. We could all wear matching swimsuits.”
(silence) “You are joking….right?”
Anyway – the point is that sometimes I see family portraits that are placed in a setting that has absolutely NOTHING to do with the family. Sure, it is artistic, but shouldn’t the family portrait represent the family? When I go back through photo albums of my childhood, my favorite portraits were taken in our yard or in our house. Because our old house and yard were part of the family. I am glad that we are staying close to home this time around.
Of course I learned that you can take this idea too far. When I suggested to my EC that we take our picture in front of the convenience store, with sodas in hand, I just got an icy stare. No Icee, just the stare.
• Clothing. All white shirts? All back shirts? Matching or coordinating. I don’t really care. I just don’t want to buy a bunch of new clothes. I also don’t want to wear anything that is going to make me look fat. That is referred to as a “Gordian Knot”. Gordian, as in “gordo”, Knot as in “not”: Not-fat. (Sorry – too linguistic? Gordian knot.) Just know that I’m skipping lunch today.
• I am always mystified by the simple truth that a photog can take 300 pictures of our family and there will not be one where both my EC and I look good – at the same time. I know it violates the laws of statistics – it is inexplicable.
• Don’t make me get on the ground for some goofy pose. (Read this first: Floored)
• Fifty years from now, when the next generation is showing their children photos from their youth, one of the kids will say, “What was wrong with the cameras back then? The only colors that worked were black and white and a little bit of red.”
• Basically, the goal of a family portrait is to capture my family in a moment of time where we look nothing like what we normally look like. Tidy, smiling, coordinated, etc.
Well, now that I have finished venting to you, I will be in a much better place this evening to get ‘er done. Wish us luck. I’ll post a copy when we’re finished. (Just teasing.)
One last thing: Please don’t all jump in the air at the same time. Photographers only have you do that so they can laugh at the absolute control they have over you.
No jumping. Ever. Please.
Originally published on May 11, 2012
Last year, my family traveled to Mexico and the photographer there had us take some weird/uncomfortable pictures. We didn’t all coordinate dress or anything (luckily), but I fell for the “all jump in the air at the same time in front of the beach” trick that you mentioned. Even weirder, the photographer wanted my mom and stepdad to kiss while my sister and I put our hands over our eyes. Yeah… I drew the line there. Luckily I wasn’t featured in the one where my mom and stepdad were holding hands, facing the beach, and looking back at the camera, either.
Here’s my family’s Awkward Family Photo — actually published in one of the books, appears on the game, and was featured on MSN home page in the US and Europe some years ago. The pic was taken years ago, since my nephew with the darkest hair is now 45. My father, brother and other nephew are all deceased now. It is fun to share this from time to time. They had been out splitting wood for firewood and my mom thought it would be a fun picture, so she hustled them off to Olan Mills. http://awkwardfamilyphotos.com/2010/04/12/playing-possum-2/
About ten years ago, my professional photographer brother took some family photos for us. The kids all looked really good, but my wife and I looked lumpy and awkward in all of ours. We gave my dad the least embarrassing one of us together for his living room collection, but some time later, while visiting, I drew a stick-figure reproduction of the shot and taped it over the original. Dad left it there until he passed.
Some of us are really terrible photographers for day to day life. All my attempts to take cute pics of my family are awful. So I have a professional friend do some shots for us sometimes so we have nice, cleaned up photos as well as junky ones. Plus, then I make sure I’m actually occasionally IN the photos with my kids. And also that I look nice. 🙂
Think of it like going to church — you clean up extra nice to go to church, right? But that’s totally different from a normal chaos day, and yet both are real. Just a thought. 🙂
I’m with you on all of this, especially the jumping. Please, people, STOP with the jumping pictures!!
What a funny post! I especially liked the one about being in front of a graffiti wall! We’re taking family portraits in a couple of weeks, but thankfully, the photographer is my sister in law and she’s not weird or crazy. 🙂 The last time we took a family photograph (and not even professional) was over 2 years ago, so I’m excited for this one. 😀
Speaking as the mom who has to organize the picture taking, it is one of my least favorite things to do, but I keep trying every few years. Picking the clothes is the worst, followed by dealing with my three sons who hate having their pictures taken. Sadly I haven’t really liked any of the pictures that we have had taken the last several years.
My favorite experience was when we all loaded up in the car to drive up to the canyon to our photographer’s favorite spot for taking photos. After hiking about a mile (with our dogs…an irish setter and a dalmatian), we finally reached our destination. We sat down in a bunch of soft leaves under the trees and the photographer took their hundreds of shots. A few days later, we all started itching! Turns out we were all sitting in poison ivy! My sister STILL has scars from that day!
My mother spent weeks coordinating clothes for a big family portrait, decided to do khaki pants or jeans on the bottom, with pastel colored shirts on the top. She didn’t trust everyone to pick their own so she went shopping… when we showed up for the portrait her bedroom looked like a clothing store… we could all pick from the options she had chosen, what we didn’t keep was returned to Dillards.
When my friend saw the final portraits she said, “You look like a basket of Easter eggs.”
The trendy pose that boggles my mind is the children sitting on the railroad tracks. Or the family walking the railroad tracks. Unless you are a family of hobos, you have no business taking a family picture there!
I despise family pictures. My mom and dad raised me well. We do love candids though.
Hope it wasn’t too painful!
Thanks. I survived, and am cautiously optimistic.
You’re such a man. Very funny, very witty, very entertaining. But definitely a man.
JWW
What a great compliment! Thanks so much!
My parents were divorced when I was nine. As a young adult I realized that there was only ONE photo of my family ever taken, and it had my great-grandfather in it as well. We had another one taken when my youngest brother was 20 and my parents had been divorced for over 15 years just so we would have another one. My husband’s family only has two photos if his family growing up. We are both pretty insistent that we have regular family photos so that our children don’t have the same experience. But most if our best family photos are with the camera propped up on a rock and my husband running like crazy to beat the timer. : )
Well, I feel better now. My hubby refuses to support family pictures, but honestly, it is the only time I am ever IN a picture! This summer we will have my entire side of the family together and it has been crazy so far as we try to coordinate how we’ll do pictures: 7 different families, 14 adults, 24 children. They will certainly be far from perfect, but I don’t care. I just want to see us all together.
We have had (really really expensive) family portraits done, with the coordinating clothes, unrelated to anything in our life-settings, where everyone’s complexion was photoshopped to unnatural perfection…but my very most favorite family portrait of all was at Cannon Beach (good family memories made every summer there) with all of our children and grandchildren and no matchy matchy clothes, the wind has coiffed our hair, and NO ONE is looking in the same direction. Hysterical and naturally beautiful at the same time. And it was free. Good luck with your photo shoot.
Growing up in my house we’d get Christmas pictures every year. We would plan all year long trying to come up with the wackiest and oddest family picture. I think it came about as a compromise between my mom and dad because it was easier to get excited when you ‘re breaking traditional rules. One year we all found formal dresses or suits at the local DI and stood in a swimming pool with caps and goggles on. Another year we all wore Groucho Marx nose and glasses. It’s was awesome. My grandma for years would never hang our christmas cards up. I loved showing people all of our crazy pictures hanging up in our house cause it really showed how weird we were
The worst recent fad includes people holding up a picture frame in front of themselves. The first time I saw it, it was a whole family holding up what might have been an old wooden bed frame or possibly just randomly nailed together pieces of wood left over from a construction project. It didn’t look like a picture frame, just that they were holding some random piece of wood they found.
MMM, I think you and my husband could be friends. He too is very tolerant of my yearly need to take a family picture and could care less where it is or what we wear. He shows up, tries to smile, and patiently ignores the bill. If it takes more than an hour, though, he is out of there.
That sounds fair!
My general rule is, it doesn’t have to be pretty, you just have to be in it. The last professional picture we had taken was 3 years ago, and it was *my husband’s idea*! I really prefer the candid photo to everything else.
When we take pictures I order one crazy shot where we are all looking in different directions the children are crying etc and then one “perfect” shot where we’re all doing what you’re supposed to be doing when your getting family pictures done. Then I frame them both and hang them up side by side. Sort of a Reality vs. Fantasy depiction. I get a lot of comments from visitors:)
Well, I’m one who likes to do pictures of what depicts our family. One year everyone was in basketball shirts (they all played ball) and I wore a referee shirt. One year we were remodeling our house and building a cabin so we did a photo in a framed house with all of us holding tools and some wearing hard hats. The year we moved were living with my mom while we were building, we took a homeless photo–dressed as scroungy as we could,complete with a cardboard missionary in a cousin Eddy hat a shopping cart and a burn barrel taken under the bridge. We have some matchy ones, some nice ones (weddings), but we try to keep it a little real and fun, too. One year my nephew suggested we go as the incredibles but I couldn’t bring myself to wear spandex and I’m pretty sure my hubby would have loved that one. He actually helps with some of the creativity– just to break the monotony. It is much harder to get those family pictures when they start moving out, getting married and having babies. No one wants a picture when they’re pregnant, but we’ve done that to my daughter twice. Although, you’d never know it in the pictures because she so tiny. Have fun tonight!!! Its good to have something to laugh about later. =)
I’m laughing at this post. I MADE my husband tag along for the family pics this past weekend. He agreed to if HE got to pick out the clothes. I very hesitantly agreed. The kids about died – They got to wear polo’s and jeans- school uniforms, lol. Nothing like capturing us how we really are. Well, we are in front of a stone barn in one of the pic’s…hey, it looks cool!
I too was insistent on pictures since our FOML2 is leaving on his mission this summer. The kids fought constantly so the photographer finally said, okay fine, fight. The photographer put that on facebook for us…I’m so proud I made it my cover photo.
Now, I don’t know if you really want to do this but if you check out my facebook page (not for the pictures- they’re just a bonus) you will see a very funny FAKE mission call we pranked my son with- We got him SO good! Well it’s good if you like mission calls, Star Wars and parental revenge.
http://www.facebook.com/TidbitsFromTrina
Good luck tonight. I hope for your sake you get to sit in some boring studio as far away from any wheat fields as possible.
MMM,I couldn’t agree more. I feel like the outdoor photos always seem like people are trying to pretend they were walking around in a field in perfectly coordinated clothes when a gopher with a helmet-cam popped up out of a hole and captured the moment. I also can’t stand (pun intended) the sitting-on-the-ground photos. They always look cheesy. Finally, through a fluke of nature or superhuman genetics, I have produced almost exclusively Aryan children, while I have brown hair and dark hazel eyes. My EC always wants to put us in colors that look good on blondes with blue eyes, while I’m really more of an earth tones guy. Why can I wear what I look good in while they wear what they look good in?
We get our family picture taken every year. I’m now 27 and we’ve gone to the same photographer for 24 years. We know the drill, we’ve done the matching, the not matching, the fighting, we can say all his cheesy sayings before he does. We don’t always enjoy it, but it’s for mom so we go with little complaint (usually) and then mom is happy.
I made the mistake of framing all the pictures one year for Christmas and hanging them in the stair well to the downstairs. Mom loved it (which is what I was going for) but it’s so embarrassing when my friends come over (ages 12-17 just weren’t very good to me). Maybe that’s why I moved away . . .
Not to bring this party down with reality, but I am going to anyway. In my mind, when people wear matching clothes, it makes it easier to see/focus on faces. If there is a visual cacophony due to all kinds of patterns and graphic tees, it is harder to see/focus on faces. There are times when it is awesome to have realistic family life depictions and times when it is awesome to have a chance to focus on faces and see that johnny and jill have the same chin. Looking at black and white copies of my kids’ passport photos helped me see that even though their coloring is very different, they had a lot of the same features, which I had not known before. 🙂
Party? This is no party. What I face tonight is cold, hard reality.
As a photographer, I thoroughly enjoyed this post. I even laughed out loud at a few spots (leaving the couch in the desert? classic!). Good luck with your family pictures… and for the record, I agree with almost everything you said. Almost. 😉
I have been anxiously awaiting your comment, because I know you are a REAL pro. So you’ve gotta tell me what parts you DON’T agree with!
My sister does photography and we were just talking about how we need a picture that accurately represents my family. Here’s the plan for our next family photo (when and if I can rope my husband into doing them again! Men are such big babies!!! Excluding you, of course. ;o) ).
Husband will wear his supremely dorky overalls he just bought to wear while he’s working on the cars.
I will probably just wear a tshirt and jeans and flip flops, and put my hair in a ponytail. What I wear won’t matter, as long as I’m holding the 1 year old and 3 year old.
10 year old stepdaughter will wear her long blue twirly dress that I made her, since she wears that EVERY day she’s here.
4 year old boy will wear whatever… with his big yellow rainboots.
3 year old will wear footie pajamas, since he insists on wearing them every day and asks to wear them to church.
1 year old will wear a shirt and a diaper.
And we will pose around one of the cars parked at our house that are my husbands projects. I was hoping to do it on my ’65 Barracuda, but he’s got it pulled apart now, so probably on the Scout instead.
I’m sure it will be a very classy picture!!! Haha
Please send it over and I will add it to this post. It sounds seriously deranged.
Completely deranged. We’ll do “real” ones at the same time. Ya know, the one I actually want people to see, but we thought it would be fun to capture everyone in their current “thing” to remember later!
So this is what my husband is thinking about getting family pix taken tonight. oh great. I read this as my bed is covered in coordinating outfits and I try to convince myself that this photo shoot is gonna be easy and fun (with 7 kids – ya right!)Thanks alot!
Umm. Sorry? Bad timing. I’m sure he doesn’t think like me. Some men love playing dress-up and having their picture taken over, and over, and over again.
I was going to ask if you were all going to hold hands while jumping! Or just standing in a line holding hands. For some reason that is super popular these days even though you are just standing there straight on looking fat for all posterity to see (and by “you” I mean “me”).
I am queen of matching clothes and still pick out everyone’s outfits. But after sixteen years, they’re pretty used to it. The teenagers grumble but my husband reminds them that the faster they shut up and smile, the faster it will all be over. (If you go to the “About” page on my blog there’s our latest family shot. Black and white polka dots!)
Good luck and thank heavens for Photoshop!
Oh yeah, and to annoy the bossy family member who coordinated the whole process and told everyone what they had to wear, my hubby and his brothers all ordered the “Three wolf moon” t-shirt from amazon.com (read the reviews if you haven’t… hilarious) and wore them the whole time. It was awesome.
I’ve seen the “three wolf moon” shirts. Funny stuff.
Hahaha!
Fun to read this post as I just finished taking pictures of my kiddos and posting them on my blog. We just pull the camera out and toss a tablecloth up as a backdrop. I realized halfway through that one son had his pants on inside out and backward, one daughter was still in pj shorts, and the baby had spit up on his onsie. I’m sure the other 4 had things I didn’t notice going on too. I just wanted to capture them today, it didn’t matter if they matched (they didn’t, not at all!), or if they had even brushed their teeth yet (I’m sure I don’t want to know the answer to that one…).
Anyway, you can see our pictures with my cheap point and click camera here for fun: http://ourbusyhomeschool.blogspot.com/2012/05/home-photo-shoot.html
And MMM – will we finally get to see the person behind the blog??? Will you share the new family photo?
Oh, and my children voted yesterday and thought #3 was the lie, so I really hope you did get bit by a lion, they thought it was so cool. Not that I wish harm on you (past or present), but still….was that one true?
Although I don’t object to having photos professionally (or even amateur) done, I kind of prefer at home pictures. Partly because I’m cheap and don’t want to pay for photos. But I do pay for a few kids photos from school pictures, and think it’s nice to have paid photos for weddings, graduation, etc. 🙂
Ha ha… I hate having family pictures taken. That being said, we did just have them taken at Christmas with the whole extended family and my family’s picture is in front of an old outbuilding but we live on an actual ranch so it was 20 steps out the front door. The barn was waaaay too far in the 20 degree weather. 🙂
Once when my photographer brother-in-law was visiting we decided to head across the street to the grassy school fields to get a family photo since we hadn’t had one in years. We did. And let’s just say that before seeing those photos, I thought having matching/coordinating clothes for a photo shoot was nice, but not necessary. And AFTER I saw those photos, I realized that when you aren’t giving a thought to what 10 people are wearing in a photo, you aren’t going to be displaying that photo ever. It was So. Bad.
LOLOLOLOL
Yes, the digital age has barfed out a bunch of “fauxtographers” that think they can get paid $300 to take snapshots and give you a disc of pictures you have to go print yourself. But “specializing in natural light” doesn’t mean “can’t afford lighting equipment” all the time. Lighting equipment can be cheaper than the camera + lens. I prefer to take portraits in the outdoors because it actually speeds up the process (especially for those who hate to have their portrait taken). Inside my studio, some people can feel trapped, like time is standing still, and make the experience horrific for everyone involved. And if you’re paying for someone to give you a picture where not everyone looks great, then you’re getting duped. A good photographer can make anyone look good, and anyone who spends 10 minutes on YouTube can learn how to head-swap (where you take a great face from pic #1 and put it onto pic #2 so everyone looks good).
You are totally missing a marketing opportunity here by being anonymous!
Nah…Never let your clients know you are snarky about your competition. Also, I charge a flat fee for a session…if they know they’re getting less time for the same fee they’d be paying if they were in a studio, they’d complain. Plus, I’m pretty sure nobody I know where I live reads your blog (’cause I live way, way, way far from you, and I’d have to empty a tank of gas to get to another LDS person’s house around here).
I do like the intrigue…
I truly think you and my husband share a brain…wait, honey? Did you start blogging again?
I have had one family portrait and that was because my mother paid someone to take pictures of our original family and now our own families. And when someone asked what to wear for the photo, she said just wear anything, I don’t want to match.
We took the photo in the backyard and she had us put our winter gear (in Oct) so it could be her Christmas card. When we got it back, my sister (badly) photo-shopped it and made it look like we were standing in the mountains in front of a forest of trees. Then we noticed that two of the family members weren’t wearing shoes. Then my brother got married. So we photo-shopped his wife in. It is the craziest photo and I love it.
I’ve had my sister-in-law take a photo (with my camera) of my family in front of the temple (at a wedding). My son has the goofiest smile and my daughter looked like I had never tried to do her hair. But hey, that’s my family. 🙂