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?
