Photographic Adventure

The character Earl Hickey of My Name Is Earl can't seem to keep his eyes open in a photo.











I can relate.

Yesterday, I set out to take the annual photo of my children for our Christmas card. At the ages of 10 (son) and 9 (twin daughters), they're experienced enough to know the photo drill. I figured this would be a breeze.

More like a storm.

I'd picked out the coordinating outfits several weeks ago, and obtained buy-in from each child at that point. The girls were easy: they liked their dresses and the boots. My son was a little skeptical of the scarf, but seemed willing to try something new. The new piano room color scheme happened to match the outfits, so once the furniture arrived, that became our set and we were ready to go.

Instead, the plan began to fall apart.

My son put the outfit on and immediately commenced unbottoning the collar and then frantically tucking it into the shirt. "What are you doing to the collar?" I asked. "I hate the feel of it against my skin!" he said.

No matter. He'd have a scarf on. Which, incidentally, put him near tears."I look stupid in this!"

I thought he looked handsome and stylish.

We got him settled down, although he still maintained a pout.

Once my son was somewhat under control, I went back to curling the girls' hair. One of the twins gave a disgusted sigh and approached tears herself: "There are no curls in my hair!" As I looked at her hair that had curls all over, I didn't quite understand her frustration. She looked truly beautiful. The rest of the clan looked at her with mouths agape. "What do you mean, you don't have any curls? We're looking right at them!"

Naturally, the solution was bribery: all children who endured the photo shoot happily and with smiles would get ice cream afterward. Amazingly, three smiles immediately appeared on all three faces!

Good thing I was shooting with digital. I took about 50 shots and deleted about 48 of them. (To be honest, they weren't all rejected due to the subjects -- several were rejected due to poor photography on my part!)

Witness the gallery of rejects (rejected photos, that is, not children!):




Goofy eyes









Closed eyes










Distracted eyes











Cutesy overkill









Choke-hold on the dog





I started to wonder if our photographic adventure would ever end. But it did, with success. And the winner?




















Still, maybe I'll leave the photography to the pros next Christmas!