| I need a photographer. |
"Huh?" you might be thinking. "Aren't YOU a photographer?" Well allow me to answer those unspoken questions.
After a few years of doing some photography work, I've decided that I need a different photographer for my children. They won't smile for me. Or better yet, they scowl at me. Like I'm trying to shoot laser beams at them through the camera lens. Or they'll do the uber-cheesy smile, like someone is next to them jabbing them with a hot poker and they're just thinking "HURRY UP AND GET THIS OVER WITH."
Is it too much to ask? Really? To get a few nice pictures a year? Because I don't think I'm really being all that unreasonable. And I even give them plenty of warning - days if not WEEKS of warnings that we'll be having a photo shoot coming up soon.
I can get any other child on earth to look magnificent for the camera. I have parents insist that their child will NEVER smile and I can get them to smile. And GREAT smiles at that. So what is up with MY KIDS??
So if you know anyone who lives in the Inland Empire who is a fantastic photographer and works for free, give them my number.
That being said, here are the pics we got the other day. Now part of the problems are technical - the light changed very quickly (as in withing 45 seconds, no joke) from the time I started shooting to the time I got through the four kids. I adjusted my settings a few times but not quite where they needed to be so the pics were too dark thus a little grainy after photoshopping them. No big deal, really. Except that the darkness combined with the blur from constantly pulling the camera away from my face to scream "JUST LOOK AT ME AND SMILE! NO, not that fake smile a REAL ONE! NOOOOW!" only to have them reply "I AM." Really? The pics just didn't turn out that great (quality-wise). The full-body shots of the kids are printable and after messing with them I do like them. But the closeups - blah. Good for the web or 4x6 but not to blow up for the wall, which was the whole point of going to the beach to do pictures.
Oh well. Such is life, right? *sigh*
Now when you see these pictures, I know what most of you will think - they're fine! What are you complaining about? Well, I'm anal. What can I say. You didn't know that about me, did you. My life just SCREAMS "NOT ANAL". Until you look at my photography stuff. The one thing in my life that is meticulously organized and categorized and analyzed. LOL.
*********
 Eli. I don't know if you can see the invisible hot poker or not, but it's there - jabbing him repeatedly.
 Now this one - I think Grandpa Jim must have gotten him to laugh so it's the closest thing to a real smile we got.
 There was another one that was actually really cute but this was the less blurry of two so this one won.
 So we got him to smile - but it's not really a real Grant smile. And it's blurry.
 Ryan was TOTALLY fake laughing here, but it's pretty cute. Weird lighting/coloring.
 Alright - so it's a cute smile. But it's blurry. Because I kept having to pull the camera away and back and forth screaming like a banshee at him. I took probably 20+ pics of each kid and these are literally the only ones that turned out.
 There's that dang invisible hot poker again.
 I think I had resolved my lighting/focusing issues by this point and the picture quality was a little better. Not that greatest smile she has but she's still adorable - she looks so OLD here.
 Now getting the four kids together was another story in itself. Sure, this picture might look decent now. I'm not going to tell you how much photoshop magic it took to get it there. And it's still really grainy. BUT it's not too bad, eh? Can you even tell that I cloned out 3 people behind them and replaced more than one child's head from another picture? HAHAHAHA
And I'll leave you with this shot which I totally love. It was really helpful to have them all NOT looking at me and NOT smiling at me. Made it an easy shot that I'm totally going to frame, blurry/grainy or not. :)
Good thing these kids are so dang cute. If they weren't though, maybe I wouldn't want to take so many pictures of them.... |
|
|
|
| The Freddy Fam |
We managed to get a BIG family picture on the 4th of July! And it turned out surprisingly good. hehehe.
Here we are! One big happy family.
 |
|
|
|
| reminders, part deux |
Ok, here's a snippet from chapter one. HAHAHA
....
"This is Nick, and this is Chris, and the guy who's driving is Roger. If you couldn't tell, her just got his license." Lindsay hadn't noticed, but she didn't really care. All that she was thinking about was that these new guys were pretty cute - especially Ryan & Nick. She couldn't really remember any of the other one's names. She looked over at Lisa, and they gave each other smiles, knowing exactly what was going through each other's minds."
....
I think Nick is supposed to be our friend Kenny. Chris, I'm not sure - maybe Bobby? I'd have to read more of the "book" to figure it out. Roger is Aaron. Lindsay is me. Lisa is Rachael. And seriously - this is all word-for-word the first conversation that happened with these people.
And oh, it gets better. Not only did I write things that actually happened, I also started writing things from Aaron's perspective (like I really had a clue). Oh my GOSH. Did I mention that I was the biggest dork EVER???????? |
|
|
|
| reminders |
So just in case I had forgotten, last night I was reminded of what an amazingly huge dork I am. My parents were watching the kids for us and when we got back to pick them up my mom handed me a notebook she said she found in garage while cleaning.
I opened it up and even though it was written almost 14 years ago I still felt a wave of embarrassment over what a HUGE DORK I was! It was written when I had just turned 15 and was already head over heels for my now husband.
Now if it was just some dumb journal or something, I wouldn't be writing about it here (although, my elementary school diary might be worthy of blogging about - FREAKING HILARIOUS).
No. This was a BOOK. Literally. I started a book. And not a fictional book, either. It was word-for-word the story of my relationship with Aaron (at the time of writing there was NO relationship other than my fantasies of one HAHAHA). The only change was names. All names were changed to protect those involved I suppose.
I'll have to type up a snippet of the "book" and post it tomorrow - quite hilarious stuff.
But man, was I such a dork. |
|
|
|
|
Name: Karah
Home: California, United States
About Me: I've been married to my super hot hubby for almost 10 years and I'm a SAHM/WAHM to 4 crazy monkeys :) I love to scrapbook (it's an obsession, really), to take pictures, to play the Wii (it's good exercise - really!), to hang out with good friends & family, & to watch my kids as they grow to be righteous and honorable little men & woman.
See my profile...
|
|
|
|
|
Other blog awesomeness...
|
|
|
posted by Karah at 
