My Family Photos

If you don't already know that I have a tendency to procrastinate, let me tell you now.  I'm a BIG procrastinator.  Last September I purchased a canvas deal from EverSave.  It was an 18x24 canvas for only $45.  Seriously, if you like the look of canvases, EverSave, Groupon, etc is the way to go.  I thought for sure I'd be able to snap a canvas-worthy photo of my kids by the time the deal expired one year later.  I was wrong.  My girls are beautiful and take great pictures...as long as I don't stand them anywhere near each other.  They fight.  They pretend they don't know each other.  They frown.  They run away.  So a year passed, and I didn't have any anything.  After all, a photo can be swapped  out of a frame when you get tired of it, but a canvas is what it is.  So, in a moment of total insanity, I decided three days before the expiration of my deal that I needed a family photo.  Crazy!  We were planning a trip to Cuyahoga Valley National Park on Saturday.  The deal expired on Sunday.  I could do it!  I frantically shopped for coordinating clothes for the girls and raided my closets for something for me and The Man to wear.  I packed up my camera gear and employed my father-in-law as my "trigger man".  I had a small window of about 1/2 hour as we waited for the excursion train (and before the crowds showed up) to get my shot.  I sat everyone down on the backside of the train depot (away from the parking lot), set the settings on my camera to where I wanted them, jumped into the shot, and told my father-in-law to push the button.  By some miracle, it all worked out.  Whew!  Here's the picture that will be my new canvas...

No, Monkey isn't quite looking at the camera, but that's typical of her, and I like recording reality.  This was our first pose.  I'm not crazy about the shadows.  By the time we pulled ourselves together and got to the train station, it was already 11:00 and VERY sunny.  If you've done a photo session with me, you know how obsessed I am about the right time of day for lighting.  This wasn't it!

We had quite a wait for the train, so I chased the girls around trying to get some individual shots.

Clearly Bug is happier to let mommy take pictures.  Most of Monkey's were a blur despite a fast shutter speed.  That girl is fast!  As I was taking pictures, my mother-in-law got out a chocolate bar and used it as incentive to get the girls into sitting together for a couple of shots.  Instead of saying "cheese", they're saying "chocolate".

The Man even got one of me and my girls.

The loves of my life...all in one adorable photo.  Love it!  Now you know where my girls got their looks.  They're the spitting image of their daddy!

I was loving that last pose so much as I was shooting it that I handed my father-in-law the camera and jumped into it.  I took a little tacked on to the side (the downside of taking your own family photos), but I'm still pretty happy with how it turned out.

And finally, one of my favorites.  I told everyone to "look at Daddy".  

It was probably the shortest, strangest, and most stressful photo session I've ever done, but I love they way it turned out.