Our Little Photo Shoot

I woke up with a vision of how my morning was going to go.  I needed some new pictures of all the boys together so I had a photo shoot planned for us all.  I gave it a lot of thought and came up with some different places around the house we could shoot.  I did the laundry so the boys would have some good neutral clothes to wear.  I charged my camera batteries.  I even went so far as to schedule ahead of time exactly what our morning would look like so that I could maximize my time (those of you who know me know I am not a big scheduler.)

Well, the best of plans sometimes don't work out.  The boys were fabulous (aided by plenty of lollipops and popsicles) and tried their hardest to cooperate, but I was having a tough time with lighting and poses and other challenges an amateur photographer struggles with.  After a while, I gave up on my dream of beautiful pictures and perfectly "candid" poses, and let the boys take over a bit.  I let them goof around a bit more and pick their own poses and locations and it turned the whole shoot around!  I got some great pics of my boys being boys!  

Let this be a lesson to me:  stick with what works for us - strict structure has never been our way in most areas, so why attempt it with pictures?  When I think about it now, a picture of all three boys sitting perfectly still, all looking at the camera and smiling perfectly would seem...fake.  When do we ever sit like that?