After school today I decided to take the kids outside and attempt to capture the perfect holiday photo for our Christmas cards. Mind you my children had been in school ALL day. I was hoping that I could harness some of their energy and get some really cute shots.
Instead I ended up with two kids who did not want to take orders from some crazy mama with a camera. Here are just a few of the 55 photos that I took today that show just how uncooperative my kids were…
He was doing flips instead of cooperating with me.
This last one was the best of the bunch and after a little bit of editing (not shown edited here) it ended up looking pretty nice.
Lessons learned:
- Don’t attempt to take photos after school.
- Don’t attempt to take photos when your kids are hungry.
- Don’t assume you’ll get a good holiday photo on the first try.
- Don’t try to stage your photos too much.
- Do have a camera that takes really fast pictures (mine is slow).
- Do try to laugh a lot.
- Do let your kids have fun.
- Do pour yourself a glass of wine and relax!
Have you started your holiday cards yet? How many outtakes did you end up with before you found ONE photo that you loved?
I actually really like the first one, it looks like they’re having a grand time!
*do have someone else distract the kids while you’re shooting – essential! 🙂