DIY Family Portraits

One day I hope to have professional pictures taken of my family. In the meantime, we do it ourselves.

We hang up bed sheets as a backdrop in the living room (where the natural light is best). We wrangle four children into color-coordinated outfits and on-camera submission. We press the camera timer and then bolt back into position all the while mumbling through smiling lips, “See the flashing light? Look at the light. Smile!” Plus, due to really bad planning on our part, we discourage face-making and general tomfoolery because we thoughtlessly did this the night before our formal portrait session. All in all, a pretty stressful situation. Thank goodness for digital cameras! Here’s a sampling of what we came up with:

It took Alexander hours to comb through the two hundred and fifty pictures we took, searching for a shot that would make a decent family portrait. From the sampling above, I think you can see why. Our kiddos rarely look in the same direction at the same time.

In the end, the final product was a little bit science, a little bit art. In fact, Alexander said he felt like Dr. Frankenstein, pulling body parts from this picture, that picture, and every picture in between to cobble together into the official shot. So what do you think?

Not bad for manufactured reality, huh?