Monday, July 16, 2012

DIY Family Photos!

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Mr. M and I have been a couple for about 12 years now, and I have learned a thing or two. Basically, the fastest way for me to get Mr. M to do something is for me to book an appointment for someone else to do it.

Like, if I book an appointment for Daisy Dog to get professionally groomed, I know I will walk out on the back porch 20 minutes before her grooming appointment, and find Mr. M with a pair of shears and and a half-shaven dog.

I have scheduled movers only to have Mr. M cancel the moving company 48 hours before the move and rent a U-Haul instead.

Or like when I finally hired a painter to paint our family room (after months of talking about us painting it). Three hours after I hired the painter, Mr. M cancelled the painter and was in line at Home Depot buying paint.

I could go on with examples for days. Haha. The point is, on Friday night, I told Mr. M that I wanted to get professional photos of our family taken. I contacted a photographer, and set up an appointment for next month.

Next thing you know, Mr. M is dusting off the tripod and saying that we will take our own family photo first thing in the morning. Haha! I have been trying to get a family photo for MONTHS...maybe YEARS. Who knew all I had to do was book an appointment with a pro?

So, Saturday we stopped at the park and tried our hand at doing our own family photos, using our camera's timer and a little tripod. It would have gone great but one person (ahem, Ginger...) was not the most cooperative, so we made this "trial run" short and sweet. ;-)

Here is the best photo we got. All things considered, I am pretty happy with it! :-) I don't know if it's Christmas card material, but it's the best shot we have of the five of us.

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This one was okay, but not great. The depth of field was super shallow, so we're not all in focus. Ugh! Next time I will use a different lens. We used our 50/1.2 lens, and it just doesn't give you a lot of wiggle room in terms of focus.

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This one would be great if Violet were looking at the camera. I even tried to take her head from another picture and swap it in, but I couldn't get it to work! It just ended up looking weird.


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Me and two of the girls. This was one of the times Ginger was not cooperating! Ha!

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And here's just a fun one of Paprika. She thought the photo shoot was really fun, and could have kept going all day, I think! :-)

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So, that was our little DIY Family Photo Shoot. I hope we can try again soon, and get some more pictures. I also hope we can get some professional photos done - but if not, then it's always fun to make these self-portraits on our own.

Do you take your own family pictures? Have you ever tried your camera's timer function? I think I need to get more comfortable with it - it is so great to have pictures of yourself with your kids. I know that's one thing I'd like to focus on (no pun intended - ha!) in the future...

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5 comments:

jody said...

erica, i think the pictures are great and the 1st one would be a great christmas photo! i think it shows a bit of the girls personality.. cute family!

3 Peanuts said...

I think they are GREAT and I like the one where Violet is looking at the sister. It is very natural. Beautiful shots!!!

Kim said...

Cute cute cute! I was cracking up at all of your examples of getting Mr M to do things! The pictures are very good and definitely worth having plus a great story:)

starfitch said...

Buy the shutter remote for your camera...it makes them so much easier than "hurry, hurry, run!" after you set the timer. It's tiny and hides well and is super cheap!

BumbersBumblings said...

they came out AWESOME! love them!