It’s hard to get family photos. We have hundreds of pictures of Simon, a fair number with Simon and one parent, and a handful of selfies with all three of us. What we don’t have are many good family photos. As in almost none.
I didn’t really want to pay for them either. Not so much because I’m opposed to paying for family pics, but more I had a specific vision for Christmas cards and wanted to art direct the photo shoot. I don’t know if that’s acceptable to a professional photographer.
So I came up with a plan to trade family pics with some friends who have twins a few months older than Simon. I knew they also had a DSLR and the same problem with getting everyone together. (Also, even with a remote and a tripod there is only so much you can do)
After a couple of reschedules due to travel and illness, we finally got together.
We spent maybe an hour total with test shots, then our family, their family, some snacks and kid only pics. Then we went to lunch.
These are some of the card “outtakes”. Now I need to decide which of these I want to frame.
We also got a few belly pics – those are for another post.
I LOVE the two pics at the bottom of this post where he’s wearing his sweater! I think you should frame those!
Awh, these pics turned out great!
My mother is NEVER in pictures with us, and I think in part because of that, I’ve made an effort to take a family picture of us once a month since Stella was born. It’s just too common that one (or both) parents are never in the pictures, and that’s so sad!
We did the same thing for our Christmas cards this year – traded DSLR picture skills with another fam. I took their pics, my girlfriend took ours, and neither was offended by being told what to do / where to shoot /etc. 🙂