Getting Good Photos of Young Children is So Easy!

Can you smell the sarcasm in that title?

Last Friday I decided I'd take the boys to the mall to get some Christmas pictures, and hey, while I'm at it, Harrison's 18 month pictures done at the same time. Brilliant idea, Laura! Would you like to introduce a pack a wild dogs, a bloody carcass, and some baboons, as well, to liven things up?

So, I set up an appointment, dress the boys in their matching red sweaters and khaki pants, get some more floofy clothes for Harrison to wear, some goldfish crackers, hair gel and a comb, and baby wipes. I'm set!

We arrive at the photo place and get to wait about 20 minutes. That's always a great idea with the young kids. Keep 'em waiting! Then, the fun of the photo shoot starts. The photographer wants Hutton to kneel and hold Harrison's hands. Hutton doesn't know how to kneel, so his butt collapses on his heels, but hey, he's holding Harrison's hands, so that works. The photographer gets a few shots of this pose. Move on to the snowman prop. Hutton starts trying to lift it, takes the hat off, crushes the hat, etc.

OK, move on to the individual shots of Harrison. Things seem to go pretty well. I change his outfit a couple of times. He poses with a train prop while wearing a train outfit. I know these pictures will turn out great! We leave to go kill an hour at the mall.

Because the boys were both so good (relatively speaking), I take them for ice cream to kill time, as I only have the umbrella stroller for Harrison, and trying to shop with two young boys is always a bad idea. And we return to get the pictures....

Which are really sucky. The ones of Hutton kneeling, holding Harrison's hands, are OK, though Hutton has his weird half smile on, where it looks like he's using his tongue to press out his bottom lip. Plus this draws attention to the fact that he has a cold sore. Eh, they're OK, though. The snowman shot the photographer captured (and when I saw photographer, I mean the 18 year old who works there probably making $7 /hour) features Hutton trying to knock the snowman's hat into his frozen brain, while Harrison looks great. Of course the 2 pictures of Harrison are both bad. One is off center, and he looks disheveled. The other he is sitting, but has a terribly pained expression on his face. No train shots. So, out of the half hour of work (and I mean on my part, trying to get the boys to cooperate with having their picture taken), there are 5 pictures ranging from mediocre to really bad. I'm just not very happy that I've gone to all this trouble for 5 bad pictures.

I finally buy one of those poses of the boys together, figuring it's a good picture of Harrison, and not the worst picture Hutton's ever taken. Then I set up another appointment to bring Harrison back for his 18 month shots, because I still have a coupon, and I'm not going to waste a coupon, dammit!