Bloopers

It's hard to take pictures with kids. This is no revelation to me. But taking pictures with kids alone? Well, that's not just hard- it's nearly impossible.

On Wednesday I decided to drive myself crazy, I mean, take some pictures of the kids and I for Aaron. He'd been saying that he wanted some updated ones for his office to replace the ones we gave him for Father's Day last year. Can you believe how much these kids have changed since then? Scary!

I got everyone all spiffy and set up a little photo shoot in the bonus room. I set the camera on the ottoman, put a mirror behind that so I could see the back of the camera so I didn't have to keep crawling behind it between shots to reset the timer, AND so I could see what we all looked like when everyone was in front of the camera. Trouble was, I kept looking at the mirror to keep an eye on everyone and so in most of the shots I wasn't looking AT THE CAMERA. DOH!

I had the camera set to "rapid shot" so it'd take like 4 or 5 photos in succession in hopes of getting a reasonably good one in a short amount of time. Oohhh, was I ever naive. That baby of mine would crawl away the instant I put him down, so as soon as I pressed the button the self timer gave me 10 seconds to grab him, sit down, and situate the kids and myself. It was... um, a struggle. Just like last year, I ended up with over 100 photos, with very few that were any good.

Here are a few of the many, many outtakes.

Not quiiiite fast enough.

Finnley was easily distracted from the camera- and my head got cut off a lot. Dang it, the other kids look so cute, too!

A good picture, except I didn't notice that Finn had snagged something to gnaw on.

Pushing the baby's head towards the camera does not work.

In fact, there is no good way to force a baby to look at a camera if he really doesn't want to. Meanwhile, the camera has gotten nudged and is now no longer pointing straight.

Hakan doesn't feel like smiling anymore, and the camera is now waaaay off center.

Good photo! But I over corrected the camera. *forehead slap*

Finnley becomes sad, so Mommy becomes sad, too.

Hakan can't seem to smile real to save his life for his individual photos.

And now Finnley WANTS to be in the picture. Hakan thinks this is hilarious.

Attempting a sibling photo...

...with unsuccessful results.

Pyper took charge of the camera for a minute.


Finally, here are the photos we ended up using (with a little editing using Picasa).





I couldn't decide which of Finnley's I liked better, so I printed two.



Hakan and Pyper were great. They were so patient and cooperative and didn't get cranky even after hearing me say, "Stay put!" and "Again!" over and over and over.

I printed these as 8x10's and gave them to Aaron as an early Christmas present the other night. I will be sending some to the Grandmas & Grandpas, and all the Greats as well, probably as 5x7's. If anyone else would like some just let me know.