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Family Picture Time!


Here's a blast from the past: our first family picture with our first child, not quite 23 years ago.  We were both graduating from BYU so we did graduation and family together.  My mom was always really good about getting family pictures taken just about every year and that probably has a lot to do with why I've tried to do the same.

So last night we tried to take some family pictures.  Shall I detail all of the challenges of taking a family picture?  Especially with a big family?

1.  Everyone has to be healthy.  My 8-year-old has been suffering from a bad cold the last few days and it shows.  She was not smiling in most of the pictures. Her nose is red from excessive nose-wiping.  But we couldn't wait until she felt better because today was my 18-year-old's shoulder surgery.  His arm is going to be in a mega-sling for the next six weeks and I didn't really want that in the picture.  And my 5-year-old has a major bruise/goose egg on her forehead but fortunately her bangs covered it up.  We could have taken this picture before yesterday but I didn't really get serious about it until this month when I was running out of options.
2.  Everyone has to be there.  Actually everyone wasn't there last night.  I have a son serving a mission for our church until next February.  We could wait for him to come home but by then my third son will be serving a mission.  The reality is that everyone won't be home for quite a while (3-5 years) so we just have to take pictures with people missing.  I also wanted to take the picture before my son and daughter-in-law take off for my son's summer internship on the other side of the country.  They leave Monday will be gone until the end of August.
3.  You need the right lighting.  I picked 7pm since that's about an hour before sundown.  When we've used professional photographers in the past, that's what they have recommended.  Unfortunately some really major cloud cover rolled in yesterday afternoon and it was almost too dark by the time we took our pictures.
4.  You need semi-coordinated clothes.  Actually, this is not a need, just my own personal preference.  I usually pick some favorite clothing item that I already own (so at least I'll feel happy with my outfit!) and then pick clothes for everyone else based on that.  It usually involves many trips to the store and many returns.  And lots of frustration since no single store sells the same colors in all the different categories of clothing and we do use every single category except baby sizes.  It was a little tricky to find clothes that would work well for the season not knowing if it would be cold or warm.  I'm going to worry less about this in the future.  Maybe.
5. Good photo-editing software or extremely good luck really help.  Our best family pictures have been ones taken by professionals who have good photo-editing software.  Invariably, someone is not smiling or looking at the camera.  The professional pictures look great largely because they've been edited.  Unfortunately we do not own this software and we didn't use a professional last night.  So we needed extremely good luck.
6. You need a good camera and someone who has an eye for positioning everyone.  Last night it was me positioning everyone with my non-artistic eyes and my husband using our less-than-perfect camera.  We used our self-timer and a tripod so we didn't have to ask anyone to help us. 
7.  You need a good location.  This mountain scene we chose is looking a little brown but at this time of year we didn't have a lot of options.  And I don't like taking pictures in really public places.



So this is the best picture we got.  While it's not "perfect", I'm pretty happy with it.  Everyone was looking at the camera and smiling!  No one's head was blocked and we got everyone there that we possibly could.  It was really the best we could do at that particular moment in time.  And in the end, that's what I've decided is the most important thing.  You can wait and plan and try to catch the perfect time and spend lots of money on the photographer and the clothes.  I've done that and we have a really nice picture in our living room as a result.  This time around I decided to be happy with our best non-professional effort and decide that the important thing is that we just did it.  In 20 years, when I look at this picture, I will be really glad.

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