I love fall. Everything about it. The crisp weather and the smell of the heater first being turned on after a long hiatus. Breaking out my winter coats and sipping pumpkin spiced lattes in my slippers. Colorful falling leaves and the glow of the holiday season illuminating new memories about to be made. Friends gather and cheer is shared in the forms of decadent food and a variety of mixed spirits. It is a season for random acts of kindness and giving. By far, without a doubt, my favorite time of year. Immediately following the New Year, I routinely fall into a post holiday depression knowing it will be an entire year before I can belt out holiday tunes while burning a plethora of pine and pumpkin scented candles and carrying out traditions with my children. I am a bonafide holiday loving freak.
Now that I am completely off task, what I came here to share today was an experience I had attempting to get fall photos of my family. I was getting insanely jealous of all the photos I’ve been taking for other families and kids and was desperate to get some of my own family…with ME in them. Being behind the camera all the time is awesome. Except for the fact that there are NO pictures of me with my own family. I really don’t want the kids to look at our family albums in the years to come and wonder “where was mom”? I know us mothers cringe at having photos taken of ourselves as we never feel we look quite as beautiful, skinny, young, yadda yadda yadda as we should. I gave up caring how imperfect I was long ago, but golly I want to be in some pictures with my husband and kids! As a photographer, I long for the days when I can fly to West Virginia and have someone like Lisa Lucky shoot my family photos, but for now, I relied on my self timer and tripod to try to catch some memories that included the 4 of us (sorry Dodger, maybe next time).
Herein lies some problems. My remote chose not to work consistently so I was stuck with having to set the self timer and RUN to meet the rest of the clan in the hopes that for 1/250th of a second we could all be “photographable”. That’s my new word. Setting the camera manually means that if I got all my settings perfect and miraculously made it to where my family was positioned, the image would be perfect. Click click yes! Ahhhh…..no. You can’t believe how fast a toddler can fly off the handle into meltdown mode or how quickly an 11 month old can rip her hat off her head revealing bed head pigtails or how my husband can move just a few inches throwing off the focus. Back to the tripod. Again and again. And again. I don’t care if my kids don’t look at the camera as long as I am capturing a memorable moment. What does bother me is when my toddler has rebelliously buried his face in his vest and looks like the headless horseman. To end my rambling, here’s what I got. Not near the vision I had in mind but with my precocious little ones…I know well enough to go with the flow and hope for miracles. If you are a mom with a camera and are never in any pics…go take some NOW! Set the timer and run! You’ll be glad you did. Happy holidays everyone!
My family- 2011
And for your viewing pleasure…some outtakes. Shot in RAW and completely unedited and out of focus so don’t judge.
Love these Jo! You did an amazing job! ~ Your friend from cm. 🙂
These are really cute. You would never know you did them with a timer.
These came out fantastic and I LOVE the out takes. Great job!