The Challenge of Family Photos

When I was on maternity leave my aunt Karen introduced me to Groupon. Everyday I get an email offer for a product or service at a discount. A few months ago I got an offer from a photographer for a $250 one-hour photo session and prints for $80. I haven't had professional pictures of the babies done yet so I purchased the $80 Groupon and called the photographer to set up our session.

Our photo session was scheduled for last Saturday and I decided I wanted to get a family photo first and then some shots of the twins. I dressed everyone is white shirts, for a casual summer look since we are such a casual summer family and brought a change of outfits and hats so we'd have some options. We weren't sure how long it would take us to get organized and out the door, but we'd planned pretty well and actually made it to the studio 15 minutes early. No one was there yet. Since the studio was in the new design district we drove around a bit to check out the neighborhood and headed back about 5 minutes before our appointment. The photographer pulled up at the same time we did and we all headed into the studio together. The photographer still needed to set up lights and a background and as we entered we discovered the air conditioning had been left off overnight.

It wasn't a disaster, but it was not ideal. The studio never really cooled off, I was sweating and Connor's little checks got red. We sat for the family photo, but the photographer was so busy with the twins I'm not sure Carl and I are smiling or even looking up. We tried to get some shots of the babies together, but Chloe was crawling the second we set her down. After 45 minutes in the studio and only 30 minutes shooting Connor had enough, got fussy and we pack up to leave.

I never got to change their clothes or try anything else so I tried to take a few shots when I got home. The one at the top of the posting is my favorite, but it's really hard to get one with both of them sitting still and smiling as you can see from the other shots at the bottom of the posting. Hopefully the photographer had better luck than I did, but I guess we'll find out when we see the proofs. For only $80 it was worth a shot, but I may have to go ahead and pay for a more expensive, professional photographer in the future.