Logistics of a family photo, 2013

I would love, love, love to have access to a professional photographer (not to mention a budget) for family photos each year. In our little rural town, that option is out however, so it's up to me and my sweet little camera. Last year I--ahem--cheated, by taking photos of the kids separately from James and me, then creating a collage to give to the grandparents. This year we took it up a notch, and used a magical tool called a tripod to get everyone in the shot. The kids helped decide on a color palette, theme, and location, and Elizabeth played stylist.

It didn't go entirely as planned, and two of the images were taken weeks later, but I was proud of my family's enthusiasm and teamwork.

No matter how much planning we put into the shoot, there were plenty of things that went wrong. They were: 1) discovering that the remote's range wasn't as far as we thought, 2) realizing that the Live View wouldn't focus properly, resulting in a number of back-focused shots, 3) cutting the shoot short because a certain little someone had to "go potty." :)

No matter how hard we tried, we couldn't get the remote to work past this point. So we set the self-timer to 10 sec, and James ran back and forth while we tried to hold our positions. :)

 This is Location 1. We had to get there early, before the sun rose. I liked the lines, but we didn't like the sawdust left over from the previous week's county fair. Several years ago, Elizabeth raised a pig for the auction, and these are the pens.

This would have been one of my favorite poses, but it's out of focus!

You can see how quickly (and how harshly) the sun moved in.

Here's Location 2.  James and I both liked the values (not to mention the little pop of color at the top).

This is the photo that went on the wall.

This is everyone's favorite...except Conner's.

The kissing shots always get the kids giggling.

After breaking for potty time, we moved outside into our yard for individual shots. We wanted the black and white polka-dot/zebra stripe combination, but I can't take photos without some color, so we bought a 4' x 8' polystyrene board, and painted it turquoise. I had grand visions of carrying it all around the yard in different setups (like putting it in the chicken coop as a faux door), but we ended up staying in front of the house where there was open shade. Getting up at 5 AM was starting to wear on the family. :)

Production shot, via Instagram

I'm happy to say the pictures were finished in time to send to both sets of grandparents in time for the holidays.