You know, a good photoshop artist can work with far fewer than 500 pictures and "swap heads" from different takes to get everyone looking nice. I had a friend with this wizardy skill, and it's way easier than getting everyone in a big group looking good all at the same time!
My parents just had their 50th anniversary in September 2023, so for Christmas 2022 we took a family photo with them, their four kids, and six grandkids. We actually walked down the street to my brother's neighbor, a professional photographer with a home studio. This being Texas, and umbrella lights giving off a lot of heat, the "studio" (a.k.a. a tiny upstairs spare bedroom) was approximately a thousand degrees and we were trying not to visibly sweat. My niece with sensory issues was really struggling, but she's old enough to understand what we were trying to do and she gamely battled on. This Christmas my sister gave my parents a giant framed print of the result with the caption "God's blessings on 50 years of marriage." That was chosen specifically because for their 25th anniversary, my mom gave my dad a picture of us four kids with that caption (but 25 instead of 50). I think the result was worth the effort. :-)
You're right about Photoshop, but we don't have any such wizards in the family. I'd learn to use it myself if it didn't require a subscription fee these days. With all the messed up photos I end up with, it would be a useful skill to have.
I must be feeling better. This post was pretty funny! Loved the photo of you and Lola. So young! Ya’ know, my family hasn’t done a holiday photo in a while. I miss it.
I think you do it right with taking lots of photos. Having multiple pictures of all possible moments captured is something I wish I did in the past, because I can't check if many of my memories haven't distorted thanks to my fertile at times imagination.
The biggest photo maniacs in my family are my dad and three uncles (dad's brother and husbands of mum's sisters) - they always volunteer to take photos (I suspect that's may be the deliberate reason for why none of my relatives owns a tripod) and sometimes we are repeating the sessions to let others take some pics.
When it comes to asking strangers for taking photos, I have witnessed it only happening like this. First, that person tells everybody to be pictured to huddle together or spread. Then they're taking one or two photos before asking everybody to stand/sit a bit different pose. What follows is they're taking another two pictures and in next step they return the phone/camera. The whole operation lasts approximately thirty seconds to one minute. I have no clue why people decided it's considered inappropriate to take more than two photos.
Perhaps we need a stranger photo etiquette class for the general public. If anyone ever asks me to take a picture for them, I'm using up their phone's entire memory.
Oh, James. On this single occasion I can top you completely.
I have a VHS recording, from 1991, of my five-year-old self playing the smallest orphan in the workhouse in a production of Oliver!, in the main public theatre of my childhood hometown. And yes, I was the one picking my nose.
None of the adults who spotted me that night could ever let me forget it!
Your included picture and the caption for it brings back memories for me, though - at Christmas 2003 I was very close to turning 18 myself (my birthday is in February). Another reminder of how different lives can be, when you at 38 have Lola and four articulate children with their very own animal menagerie, and I at 38 live alone with my cat and my library ... No swapsies! 😉
Well, he's about 7 years old, but I'm sure *he* would be okay with swaps - for a limited time, at least!
He's basically my little cat nurse, and has trained himself, totally in spite of the general perception of orange cats, to be my service animal: he follows me all over the apartment and herds me to bed when I get dizzy, he insists on watching when I take my regular meds, and if he thinks I'm sad, angry or hurting more than usual, he'll hop up and give my hands (and sometimes feet, if I've been outdoors that day) a comfort-groom.
He's afraid of other cats (he's FIV positive, and has to be an indoor cat), but he adores humans, and would love to hang out with your girls for a while. Of course he can't actually *do* that from such a distance... but I follow you on Instagram, and there are videos and pictures of him there, if they'd like.
Lola hasn’t aged one minute since 2003! What’s her secret?? My husband’s family takes pictures of every minute they’re together for any and every occasion. On the flip side, I probably don’t have more than 75 pictures of my entire childhood, so I always volunteer to take the pictures for his family. I’d rather be anywhere than in front of a camera.
You didn't hear it from me, but Lola might be a vampire. She's just one with a very early bed time. Come to think of it, maybe she just avoids aging because she gets lots of sleep.
I lost my mum when I was 16, so I always wish I had more photos from my childhood than I do. Sadly, for one thing she shared my aversion for being in front of the camera, and preferred to be behind it, and for another, we had to rely on disposables and film cameras, and send the films away to be developed, and a lot of the time we just couldn't afford to.
Love the photo of you two baby-faced kids. My family took group photos every Christmas or any other time all of us were together. "Picture time" was a dreaded phrase but I sure am glad we suffered through it. My whole life is documented in photos up until I married 50 years ago and we just didn't follow through with taking our own family shots. I regret that now because we have mostly photos of the kids hitting a baseball or kicking a soccer ball (nice but we don't really need hundreds) but very few of all 4 of us together.
I'm old enough to have gone through pictures being taken with seemingly every kind of camera known to man and then waiting weeks for them to be developed because they had to be sent away to be processed. Most of them were slides so we had to wait to see them until usually the weekend when Dad set up the slide projector for the viewing and groaning. Sometimes it was a pleasant surprise at just how good the photos were. I must say my absolute favorite sibling group photo is when our ages were 12 down to 2 (I was 10). We're all in the front of the fireplace in various poses with my two brothers being silly, me being normal and my oldest sister trying to be tolerant of the rest of us. It's the best photo ever. Sometimes not posing is the best.
I have several photos of my ancestors probably taken at family reunions. To think just how long they had to hold a pose (that's why no smiles) and still have a decent looking photo of roughly 40 people is remarkable. And with all those little kids, there wasn't one booger digger!
"I suppressed an inner scream of terror" made me snort laugh.
My kids learned quite early; when the inevitable group photo happens, smile, get it over with and then you're free. I use the Burst mode freely to capture that one semi-good picture.
My mom is the person who makes the group shots last forever. We recently went back to our home state of Texas to visit relatives, and she needed the '1st cousins only' picture, the 'all cousins' picture (we had 1st-4th cousins), and the 'everyone' picture. Exhausting!
I have 50 some-odd years of family pictures, slides, and 8mm film to digitize one of these years. There are currently 8 sweater box size (15qt) plastic totes in my guest room closet just waiting for me to become the next family historian. On second thought - my aunt is retired and now lives 20 mins away instead of 20 hrs away. Maybe I can pay her to do it. 😜
I feel that! I’m the only one interested enough to delve through and scan all the pictures. I have some from the 1800s! I’m determined to get them digitized and made some progress on my already digital horde a while back but have not started scanning the physical media. I have slides from my dad’s stint in the army from being drafted before my birth, negatives galore, and double sets of so many photos! I love photography, along with my uncle, and my cousin did too, so we have more photos than average. I need to sort through the boxes, we have about 20 sweater boxes and at least as many albums. I want to get the older ones first while people still know who’s in them. Good luck in your efforts.
The only thing worse than trying to get a good picture with kids is trying to get a good picture with 12 women in it. We take an annual picture at work for advertising purposes. It takes forever because inevitably there's going to be at least one woman in every picture that hates how she looks.
I actually got locked in a bathroom once and didn’t have my phone with me. Last time I go anywhere without it! Max - this one’s for you - I was in a bathroom in a museum in Warsaw! With two of my young children. And the door got stuck, so we called out for a while (while one of my kids panicked!). Eventually I think either the door jarred loose, or my husband came looking for us, I don’t recall actually... but I NEVER go to a toilet without my phone anymore (and that was about 9 years ago!).
I still marvel that my husband I are still together after we years. We met at 19 and married 3 years later. Sometimes the heart knows long before the brain figures it out.
You know, a good photoshop artist can work with far fewer than 500 pictures and "swap heads" from different takes to get everyone looking nice. I had a friend with this wizardy skill, and it's way easier than getting everyone in a big group looking good all at the same time!
My parents just had their 50th anniversary in September 2023, so for Christmas 2022 we took a family photo with them, their four kids, and six grandkids. We actually walked down the street to my brother's neighbor, a professional photographer with a home studio. This being Texas, and umbrella lights giving off a lot of heat, the "studio" (a.k.a. a tiny upstairs spare bedroom) was approximately a thousand degrees and we were trying not to visibly sweat. My niece with sensory issues was really struggling, but she's old enough to understand what we were trying to do and she gamely battled on. This Christmas my sister gave my parents a giant framed print of the result with the caption "God's blessings on 50 years of marriage." That was chosen specifically because for their 25th anniversary, my mom gave my dad a picture of us four kids with that caption (but 25 instead of 50). I think the result was worth the effort. :-)
You're right about Photoshop, but we don't have any such wizards in the family. I'd learn to use it myself if it didn't require a subscription fee these days. With all the messed up photos I end up with, it would be a useful skill to have.
The PhotoShop wizard in my family is my Mother in law. She's 93(!) and I don't know what we'll do when the inevitable happens.
That's incredible. I can't say I've heard of any other grandparent completing a similar feat. I recommend you make sure that she live forever.
I'm willing to take suggestions that don't involve witchcraft.
That's super impressive, considering her age when Photoshop came out. :-)
She and my FIL were early computer adopters. The both dived in and became very good at it.
I must be feeling better. This post was pretty funny! Loved the photo of you and Lola. So young! Ya’ know, my family hasn’t done a holiday photo in a while. I miss it.
You'll miss until someone blinks or makes a face 100 photos in a row. Then the charm wears off.
True, but all of the family now is pretty old but mobile. The oldest is my husband and the youngest is 18.
I think you do it right with taking lots of photos. Having multiple pictures of all possible moments captured is something I wish I did in the past, because I can't check if many of my memories haven't distorted thanks to my fertile at times imagination.
The biggest photo maniacs in my family are my dad and three uncles (dad's brother and husbands of mum's sisters) - they always volunteer to take photos (I suspect that's may be the deliberate reason for why none of my relatives owns a tripod) and sometimes we are repeating the sessions to let others take some pics.
When it comes to asking strangers for taking photos, I have witnessed it only happening like this. First, that person tells everybody to be pictured to huddle together or spread. Then they're taking one or two photos before asking everybody to stand/sit a bit different pose. What follows is they're taking another two pictures and in next step they return the phone/camera. The whole operation lasts approximately thirty seconds to one minute. I have no clue why people decided it's considered inappropriate to take more than two photos.
Perhaps we need a stranger photo etiquette class for the general public. If anyone ever asks me to take a picture for them, I'm using up their phone's entire memory.
Took me a while to realize you weren't wearing a tiny, lopsided crown.
A tiny crown probably would have improved my performance, to be honest.
Oh, James. On this single occasion I can top you completely.
I have a VHS recording, from 1991, of my five-year-old self playing the smallest orphan in the workhouse in a production of Oliver!, in the main public theatre of my childhood hometown. And yes, I was the one picking my nose.
None of the adults who spotted me that night could ever let me forget it!
Look at it this way: You succeeded at making a lifetime memory. What an unforgettable performance!
There's certainly that! *smh*
Your included picture and the caption for it brings back memories for me, though - at Christmas 2003 I was very close to turning 18 myself (my birthday is in February). Another reminder of how different lives can be, when you at 38 have Lola and four articulate children with their very own animal menagerie, and I at 38 live alone with my cat and my library ... No swapsies! 😉
My kids would like to swap with you to get your cat. They are currently addicted to other people's kittens.
Well, he's about 7 years old, but I'm sure *he* would be okay with swaps - for a limited time, at least!
He's basically my little cat nurse, and has trained himself, totally in spite of the general perception of orange cats, to be my service animal: he follows me all over the apartment and herds me to bed when I get dizzy, he insists on watching when I take my regular meds, and if he thinks I'm sad, angry or hurting more than usual, he'll hop up and give my hands (and sometimes feet, if I've been outdoors that day) a comfort-groom.
He's afraid of other cats (he's FIV positive, and has to be an indoor cat), but he adores humans, and would love to hang out with your girls for a while. Of course he can't actually *do* that from such a distance... but I follow you on Instagram, and there are videos and pictures of him there, if they'd like.
For the win!
Thank you! :)
Lola hasn’t aged one minute since 2003! What’s her secret?? My husband’s family takes pictures of every minute they’re together for any and every occasion. On the flip side, I probably don’t have more than 75 pictures of my entire childhood, so I always volunteer to take the pictures for his family. I’d rather be anywhere than in front of a camera.
You didn't hear it from me, but Lola might be a vampire. She's just one with a very early bed time. Come to think of it, maybe she just avoids aging because she gets lots of sleep.
I lost my mum when I was 16, so I always wish I had more photos from my childhood than I do. Sadly, for one thing she shared my aversion for being in front of the camera, and preferred to be behind it, and for another, we had to rely on disposables and film cameras, and send the films away to be developed, and a lot of the time we just couldn't afford to.
What hindsight can do for one...
Sad to hear that, I'm sorry you couldn't have more pictures and time together.😢
Love the photo of you two baby-faced kids. My family took group photos every Christmas or any other time all of us were together. "Picture time" was a dreaded phrase but I sure am glad we suffered through it. My whole life is documented in photos up until I married 50 years ago and we just didn't follow through with taking our own family shots. I regret that now because we have mostly photos of the kids hitting a baseball or kicking a soccer ball (nice but we don't really need hundreds) but very few of all 4 of us together.
I'm old enough to have gone through pictures being taken with seemingly every kind of camera known to man and then waiting weeks for them to be developed because they had to be sent away to be processed. Most of them were slides so we had to wait to see them until usually the weekend when Dad set up the slide projector for the viewing and groaning. Sometimes it was a pleasant surprise at just how good the photos were. I must say my absolute favorite sibling group photo is when our ages were 12 down to 2 (I was 10). We're all in the front of the fireplace in various poses with my two brothers being silly, me being normal and my oldest sister trying to be tolerant of the rest of us. It's the best photo ever. Sometimes not posing is the best.
I have several photos of my ancestors probably taken at family reunions. To think just how long they had to hold a pose (that's why no smiles) and still have a decent looking photo of roughly 40 people is remarkable. And with all those little kids, there wasn't one booger digger!
I may actually have a slide projector that can be adapted to view film negatives. Also a handful of slides from before I was born...
"I suppressed an inner scream of terror" made me snort laugh.
My kids learned quite early; when the inevitable group photo happens, smile, get it over with and then you're free. I use the Burst mode freely to capture that one semi-good picture.
My mom is the person who makes the group shots last forever. We recently went back to our home state of Texas to visit relatives, and she needed the '1st cousins only' picture, the 'all cousins' picture (we had 1st-4th cousins), and the 'everyone' picture. Exhausting!
There are so many categories. I'm a big fan of "everyone" and then being done. Let's pretend it's because I don't want anyone to feel excluded.
I have 50 some-odd years of family pictures, slides, and 8mm film to digitize one of these years. There are currently 8 sweater box size (15qt) plastic totes in my guest room closet just waiting for me to become the next family historian. On second thought - my aunt is retired and now lives 20 mins away instead of 20 hrs away. Maybe I can pay her to do it. 😜
I feel that! I’m the only one interested enough to delve through and scan all the pictures. I have some from the 1800s! I’m determined to get them digitized and made some progress on my already digital horde a while back but have not started scanning the physical media. I have slides from my dad’s stint in the army from being drafted before my birth, negatives galore, and double sets of so many photos! I love photography, along with my uncle, and my cousin did too, so we have more photos than average. I need to sort through the boxes, we have about 20 sweater boxes and at least as many albums. I want to get the older ones first while people still know who’s in them. Good luck in your efforts.
The only thing worse than trying to get a good picture with kids is trying to get a good picture with 12 women in it. We take an annual picture at work for advertising purposes. It takes forever because inevitably there's going to be at least one woman in every picture that hates how she looks.
I actually got locked in a bathroom once and didn’t have my phone with me. Last time I go anywhere without it! Max - this one’s for you - I was in a bathroom in a museum in Warsaw! With two of my young children. And the door got stuck, so we called out for a while (while one of my kids panicked!). Eventually I think either the door jarred loose, or my husband came looking for us, I don’t recall actually... but I NEVER go to a toilet without my phone anymore (and that was about 9 years ago!).
I still marvel that my husband I are still together after we years. We met at 19 and married 3 years later. Sometimes the heart knows long before the brain figures it out.
It takes discipline to take fewer photos. I'll get there someday. For now, the parental guilt is too strong.