family fail-tures.

so i'm a photographer.  so i'm obsessed with photos. and i obsess over creating perfection for everyone else's photos.  i advise you what to wear, where to go, what time will be best. i goo and gah and jump around like a loon to get babies to smile. when a mother tells me her kid isn't a smiler, that's my challenge to get that kid to smile and i will do whatever is necessary. i've gotten grass stains on my jeans, broken a flip flop and gone barefoot for the shoot in the weeds, been bitten by 100 misquotes, come dangerously close to a moose, trespassed, hiked through snow up to my waist, invited a gang of skateboarders to join a bridal shoot, stood outside in 20 degree weather and in 95 degree weather. been rained on, sunburned, waded in a lake. gotten up before the sun, stayed way past my bedtime. 

i'll do whatever i can do to make your pictures perfect.

then, there's the challenge of my own family pictures. i have the awful obsession with perfection, but i'm not able to take them. i also love my equipment and am skeptical of a lot of photographer's gear. i don't want to pay anyone else! like probably every other photographer out there, i just want to take my own family pictures, dammit. 

alas, it never works. 

this year, first we tried my brother reed. he has a good eye and is willing to use my camera. there was finally a day that travis didn't work and i didn't have a shoot already scheduled. it was the only day available. i round brushed my hair. travis actually put gel in his. i'm wearing eyeliner. remy's outfit was perfect and all the clothes finally fit him, not to big, not yet too small. (the struggle is real, okay.) 

and then. we get to our location. and remington throws the biggest fit. he refuses to cooperate. i even ran to a store near where we were, bought a bag of cookies, and let him eat all of them. 

nope. 

i was pretty devastated. 

this was the best one we got and we used it for christmas cards. which i have yet to mail. ... 

yeah, they are funny and definitely more entertaining than if remy had just cooperated.
sigh.



so then my mom wanted to do family pictures with the charles side. there was a mix up about what my brothers were wearing, my mom dashed to the mall ten minutes before we were supposed to start, blah blah blah we didn't get the lighting i wanted. also i don't like using a tripod and then running to my place and hoping it turns out. these ones were okay.

as my heart explodes with love. 

my dad was teasing me about acting like i didn't want to be in the photo with him, so this. 

was pretty bummed this one came out blurry. but we are still cuuute. 

i probably will never get that perfect shot i have envisioned. maybe in a few years when rem is old enough to listen to me, but still young enough not to be a grump about pictures. 

not ideal, but still a good time to look through. 

always dissatisfied, 

xo.