So I've never been a big fan of posing for pictures of any kind. And I've learned over the last 9 years or so of fatherhood that adding multiple children to the mix really only makes things worse, and makes the smiles that much more fake. We have a set of family photos where one daughter literally was crying the entire time. So busting a grin for the camera became a bit like asking someone on a date while someone else was jabbing a sharpened pencil into your back repeatedly.
(true story, I was once stabbed so hard with a pencil by a female 5th-grade classmate that I had to go to the nurse's office - I was left to assume that the girl either really hated me or really liked me, but I was just a kid with pencil lead in my back)
Well today we took the little HTFers to the photographer and did our annual ritual of faking smiles so we can send out photos to people who we think like us at Christmas. It went well, but in the end we were all pretty spent. And that's when the wise studio-workers try to sell you stuff. They know you're worn down and just wanna get out, so they fix up "packages" which often include several thousand wallet-sized photos of your kids staring into a light and trying not to squint. (of course they don't cut out the pictures for you - they don't have that kind of time, because there's always a big line of gullible festive families there to photograph) Still, the pictures turned out fine, although somehow we bought so many that we even ended up with pictures of other families too. (that last part wasn't entirely true - Traci was actually quite frugal.)
* The term "little HTFers" was coined by my good friend, "Little Scott" - he is known to his kids, and I'm not making this up, as "King Daddy, The Great, The Fifth" - which I thought was an excellent title.
4 comments:
Ugh Fun. I'm still not ready to talk about our last family photo shoot.
With these digital cameras, I always get confused about when I'm supposed to smile. Like are they still focusing the camera or are they getting ready to snap the picture? I'm easily confused & can never tell - which is how I always end up looking shady (and confused).
You just needed to fly me in to take your family picture. I would have made it painless!
Let's see...our last family picture was in 2003, and I'm still suffering from PTSS. Seeing our 6 children's school photos from year to year (somebody always looks like their doing a bad impersonation of Jack Nicholson's The Joker smile) I'm in no hurry to shell out money for that kind of torture.
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