What I am about to say will probably tick a lot of people off. But I’m going to say it.
Go get your family portrait taken NOW.
Grab the kids and run down to Sears.
How much money is in your purse that you can spend? $72? Find someone who can give you something for $72. Do not wait until you can save up the bucks to get a fantastically huge enlargement for over the couch.
Do not go out and buy matching outfits.
Do not wait until you can ALL be together.
Grab as many people as are available and GO!
Then when you get home, drag out the camera manual and learn how to take a photo using the automatic timer.
PRACTICE. PRACTICE. PRACTICE!
And then assemble your family and take your own photo.
And then do it EVERY.SINGLE. MONTH.
And don’t decide that it’s too hard to position the camera and set the timer and you’ll just take the photo yourself.
I WANT YOU TO BE IN EVERY SINGLE MONTHLY FAMILY PHOTO.
Why am I on a tear about this?
Because last week it was my job to collect photos of my mother-in-law for the funeral home to arrange into a slideshow tribute to be shown during calling hours. I gathered together photos from family members and my own files and we sat down to cull them down to 40 – the maximum number allowed by the funeral home.
I was not in the slideshow.
There were NO candid photographs of me with my mother-in-law. Because I was always behind the camera.
And I am a hypocrite. I constantly lecture my classes about this and one of the assignments in Photography 101 is to learn to use the self-timer and take a self portrait. I talk about the time my husband and I went overseas for 9 days and the resulting photographs look like “Dwight’s Trip to Ireland.”
At a time when I really didn’t need any more stress, I learned a huge lesson. There are a handful of group photographs that we are in together, but there are none of just us.
Don’t learn this lesson the hard way. Pay for a family portrait as often as you can and learn to use your self-timer. Learn to let go of the camera and hand it to someone else to take a photograph of you and someone special.
Set it on”auto” if you need to, I won’t tell.
Yep, our trip to New York last week, I’m in zero of the pictures. I told my friends that they are no longer allowed to not bring a camera with them on trips and rely soley on me because I now don’t exist in any of the trips we take/took.
Thank you so much for this reminder! I am never in our photos! My middle child wants to get a family portrait done. She has even drawn the layout and our outfits! lol We really need to do this!
Better than Sears, trade services with another photographer you know. I will do your photo if you will do ours.
I tried the timer, but we have dogs & never fail they will not be looking at the camera without someone there. Last time I did get it all set up & had one of my son’s friends push the button.
I have a somewhat similar story. I grew up in a family that was always taking photos. Christmas, birthdays, family trips, even just playing out in the yard. We have boxes of photos. My husband’s family… not so much. For the first couple of years, I tried to take photos during the big get togethers, but always met with resistance. “Why do you have your camera?” “Don’t take any photos of me.” “Just put it away, no one wants a photo of this.” You get the idea. So, I quit taking photos of his family. After being married for about 5 years, I had our first child, and my father-in-law’s first grandson. I have a couple of photos with him and my son in them, only because I was doing the new-mom thing and had received a new digital camera as a gift when he was born. (And old Sony Mavica… took floppy disks as the media! LOL) About a year and a half later, my father-in-law died from cancer. When we were gathering photos for the funeral, the only ones of him that had been taken in at least the last ten years where the ones I had taken when my husband and I were first married. To this day, I regret that I never made him and my husband sit down and take a 3 Generation photo.
My point is… photos are the only thing we have that will last longer than we will. No matter what… take those family photos. Professional photographer, chain studio, newbie photog, hell… even the kid from next door with a point and shoot. SOMETHING is better than nothing, and don’t make your family regret that they don’t have a recent photo of you.
And by the way, I know why you said SEARS.. it’s quick, it’s now! It’s may not be the best, but SOMETHING is better than NOTHING!
Yeah – it was just an example of somewhere that you can pretty much walk in and get an appointment on the spur of the moment.
My husband is returning from deployment VERY soon. I have already booked a photographer for family portraits. I’m still overweight and out of shape. But I don’t care. I have no pictures of us together since 2001 and that’ when we only had one child, we now have 3. I need take make sure my kids can look back and see me IN their lives, not around it! THANK YOU for the reminder!