family photos without members of your family & the frizzball factor

Dear Em,
Remember the post where I overviewed how to take forced family fun pictures? There will be times when you follow all of those imperative steps & things still don't work out as planned. That was pretty much the case this year, & there was nothing we cold do about it.

We had a location planned (Arlie Gardens). We had a color scheme planned (everyone wear beach colors to go with Nonnie's family room). We had a time (9:00am, which I was sure everyone would hate me for, but I wanted to start before it got too hot). We had our family. I had two cameras & a tripod on standby. I had our photo plan down, but then our plan went out the window.

Our first setback was losing part of our family. Sadly, we lost Aunt Jennie & Uncle Nick to an awful case of poison ivy. It was understandable that they didn't want to take part in a photo session when they had poison ivy going up their faces. That may have been a good time to just cancel this year's family photos, but we my mom & I were still determined to go with the rest of the plan.

Then tropical storm Andrea hit. I started changing my original vision of of our portraits to include umbrellas & fun family moments splashing in puddles. The less sane part of my brain thought, "this could still work, right?"  Lucky for us, Andrea blew through before our family photo day. Unlucky for us, it left behind a humid stickiness that was not conducive to me having a good hair day (and really, it all comes down to what my hair looks like, right?). The frizzball factor was compounded by not making my originally planned start time. We were late, & it got hot- sweaty hot.

We ended up ditching our originally planned spot for an easier & closer location (at this point we were crunched for time). I had this. I could still make this work. I pretended I had bigger photo challenges than losing part of the family, heat, humidity, & my frizzball hair design. I put everyone in their places, waited for everyone to ask if we were done yet (before I had even taken the first photo), set up my camera...wait, what the FRICK was going on with my camera?! Apparently, the humidity was causing the inside of my camera to fog up (I don't know the technical wording so I'll just be really professional & say the inside of my camera). We waited for it to clear up & for frizz to further set in my hair. And then I just couldn't wait anymore (& by that I mean the angry mob my family would've strangled me if I waited any longer). It's a good thing I bring along two cameras. I brought out the one that was going to give us less quality photos, but at least it was working.

In summary, it wasn't the most successful family photo shoot, but we got a few good shots.

We can photoshop Aunt Jennie & Uncle Nick into this one, right?

I was really into the peaking out from behind trees thing this year...

I love the shots I got of my parents. Can you see the ducks in the pond?

By the end my hair was officially a frizzball & you were super flushed & absolutely over family photos, but Daddy looks great, right?

We may not have gotten the perfect family photo, but with a little photoshop & Aunt Jennie & Uncle Nick having a photo shoot of their own, Nonnie will still have family pictures for her Christmas card this year. Plus, 2013 just wouldn't have been complete without forced family fun photos, right?

I love you so,

Mommy