More Adventures In Photography With My Kids

I'm starting to think that my camera has some sort of smiling-happy-child-repellant sprayed all over it. 

The boys are really happy boys. They smile and laugh and giggle all day. Over everything. Over nothing. They're always laughing and giggling. Especially Camden. Everything is funny when you're a baby. That's why those crazy photographer hippies at Target make crazy sneezing noises that echo throughout the store (and keeps you wondering who is dying of an allergy attack in here??) in order to get whatever target baby to smile. 

Hey, if it works, use it, right?

When Calen turned a year old we did professional photos. Back then (I say back but it was only a mere two years ago), it was expensive but not out of control. We got pretty good pictures for a department store. We did it again, one last time, this past Christmas. Same store, different photographer (clearly incompetent this time), WAY HIGHER PRICES!! That's when I decided that this is a waste of time and I needed to buy myself a fancy camera and do our own family pictures. 

At least those that don't involve me. And of course in order to get said fancy camera I had to wait until February when we got our tax return. Why is life so expensive??

Yes, I know I could go to one of the 193191 awesome private professional photographers in this area. But let's face it. Prices are too high for my bank account to handle. Unless you want to pay for it. Then by all means, recommend away. 

I thought HOW HARD COULD IT BE to get some decent semi-professional-looking pictures of the kids around their birthdays, Christmas, Easter, etc etc. 

Clearly it's impossible. 

Look at my turd face PURPOSEFULLY holding back a smile.

My kids, like I said, will smile at anything. I can do the same thing, make the same stupid face, or the same stupid sound effect, over and over and over, and they will laugh and laugh and laugh. 

Until the precise moment that I pull out my camera. 

Suddenly, it's not funny anymore. In fact, it's pissing them off. Now instead of laughing so hard at quacking noises they can't breathe, now they're scowling, bored, looking anywhere but at me, infatuated with some random object 180 degrees away from me (and if I move behind said object, it's suddenly moved another 180 degrees).

And if I put the camera away, it's suddenly funny again. 

My little monkey Camden turns 1 a week from tomorrow. (cries, sobs, hyperventilates, etc). Which means it's time for me to go desperately attempt take beautiful 1 year pictures of my handsome man. 

OH MY GOD, he SMILED!! (at someone else)

Today was our first attempt. I put gel in Cam's little girl crazy curly hair and even bought a cute mini skateboard at 5 and Below as a fun little prop. On the recommendation of a friend we took the boys to Sunset Beach in west Cape May. (Pretty beach, sunken ship off shore, neat old buildings, etc). Daddy and Calen went to play in the sand/rocks. Our friend met us there and between the two of us (and our combined two Canon Rebels) we figured we could get a few good pictures of my smiley little man. 

Or not. Apparently Camden failed to inform us that today was National Do Not Smile Day, or maybe he assumed that the state police would give him a ticket if he exposed his teeth to the air, or maybe a personal challenge to be as serious as possible, but no matter what strange noises we made, the kid would.not.smile.for.anything. 

Perfect lighting, awesome backdrop, uncooperative kid. ::sigh::

We played peekaboo. We bobbled around like crazy people. We held his 14 month old girlfriend up over our heads to try to get his attention. We even fake sneezed. NOTHING would make the kid crack a smile. 

He was also infatuated with eating rocks on the beach the whole time, which made him even more grumpy because I had to keep shoving my finger in his mouth and pulling rocks out of his cheeks. 

With his little curly faux-hawk and his skateboard, it actually kind of made an appropriate pose. (Brad called him a badass. I have a hard time seeing our 11 month old as badass, but props if he is). And actually I thought that they made a fun little baby-model photo shoot. 

A strangely adorable photo of my non-smiling kid eating a skateboard.

We tried to take pictures of Cam and his little lady Caroline together too. It really must be National No Smiling Day, because Caroline wasn't having it either. But sometimes the best pictures are the candid ones where the kids are acting natural and not necessarily smiling.

That's the line of crap that we all tell ourselves to feel better when we fail to get a single picture of our kids smiling. 

Either way, I'm strangely satisfied with how some of these turned out. Not that I won't make another trip out for a second attempt of getting SOME pictures of him smiling.  

Young love. Well kind of. Cam looks smitten but Caroline looks disgusted.

 

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