Posing the family picture

Admit it, somewhere throughout your family pictures, there's that Christmas card of your whole family lined up on your steps in your favorite sweaters or (even worse) white/red t-shirts and jeans. I totally understand this because hey, photographers CAN be pretty expensive and you gotta do what you gotta do. But this year, I challenge you to break out of that same old mode and spice it up a bit. For our family picture this year I knew we weren't going to have time to do an actual shoot because of everyone's schedule. My brother was home for one afternoon, and it was now or never. I texted the family members ahead of time to let them know what we were wearing so we wouldn't clash, I told my brother to "Not wear the same shirt he always does" and we made it happen. :) I staggered everyone on our front steps (In September while we still had some color on our skin. ;) and incorporated something that we all have in common. Photography. Big shock, I know. ;) Except for James, my older brother, we all have our own Nikon's, but James rocks his android cell phone camera. I thought about giving him another Nikon (we had a D200 on loan) but that's not James. I stuck with that I knew we all used. Our picture was taken on a regular point and shoot (because we didn't have a DSLR to spare) we only took one shot, and I really, really love how the picture turned out. Not into photography? Have each family member pick their favorite thing and use that. (Maybe have a girl wear an apron if she loves cooking, the boy hold a basketball if that's his sport of choice, mom hold her favorite magazine, dad hold is favorite power tool or book....) Have your pictures tell a story about each person, not the story of "Hey look how good our Mom is at color coordinating our entire family with the SAME exact shirt for each person!" ;)

I hope this helped a little with your Christmas picture pursuit. :)

Stay Beautiful,

Anne