photographer secrets

I think one of those things photographers are weird about is telling you their secrets about how they get people to pose in their pictures. It can be a tricky thing to try to bring the life out of people standing in front of a camera without letting them feel like they're just not cutting it and their pictures will be totally lame.

I think that's dumb. Do you have any great ideas? Let's share. Please, no saying of things that rhyme with "cheese" or jumping pictures. Oh, I've done my fair share of jumping pictures...and I'll still use jumping as a method to get what I want after the jump. It's just that it's rare to find a person that actually looks good jumping, you know? Though it is super funny when you somehow snap one right as someone lands and their cheeks haven't caught back up to their face yet. I'll keep those to myself.

The Tip: After-jumping is the cutest moment ever. Recently I've become rather fond of the "jump up together and then as soon as you land, squish Lily"

family photo shoot x 7

a tiny sneak peek from one of those ginormous family reunion photo shoots.

cute kids galore. happy families all over the place. perfect weather.

it was a good day for pictures. lots of them.

so many parties...so little time...to blog about them

I would call this one: beginning of the summer dinner party where everything was yellow and green (even the trash) and everybody helped with the delicious food and the weather was perfect for debuting my new twinkly light set-up

gone

one of the words you'll hear max saying a lot these days is GONE

if Lily's upstairs playing in another room and you ask where she is she's GONE

if the snacks run out at the park all because of one small boy somehow they're still mysteriously GONE

if mom shuts off the tv after Dino Dan and says that Dan's done for the day he's not just done, he's GONE

oh man, he's a cute one

other things that are GONE:

that long hair

that big sad forehead bruise

that left shoe (left it at the zoo)

beans

hey people with cameras:

sometimes when you're messing with a lens or a setting or a button do you just click around and photograph whatever is right around you just to see how your fiddling is affecting things? well I do and sometimes I'm really surprised at what I end up with. here I was sitting at my turquoise little computer desk in the closet in the never-clean art room. which at the moment has the end result of a 6-year-old girl and a 2-year-old boy playing unsupervised with a ginormous plastic tub of beans. at least they had fun.

"nobody can be uncheered with a balloon"

yes, I admit.

I had another no-reason party.

or maybe 2 or 3.

and while I do like my friends and I do rather enjoy good food and I do have quite the supply of streamers and striped paper straws...

I think possibly the real reason for this party-throwing hobby is the balloons!

after our latest shindig my kids and I took turns waving balloons in the air while one of us photographed from below.

I think the pictures are my favorite ever.

somewhere on the intergoogle it said that the quote up top is from winnie the pooh