Frankenportraits

Who came up with the idea for family portraits anyway? I mean the posed, let's make an appointment for us all to get together in one room with matching shirts and try to all smile in the same direction at the same time kind. Yes, we just had our family portraits done, and since the lst experience at Wal-mart was economical but not totally satisfying, we went to Sears. I figured if they're more expensive and they take appointments, they must be better, right? Well, maybe that's true, but I'd never know it. Picture this: me, hubby and Monkey show up all pressed and primped to find ONE photographer at the studio with her TWO CHILDREN (ages apprximately two years and five years) running around because her boyfriend showed up with them and then left. So, we're trying to get the one-year-old pictures done ffor monkey while two-year old boy runs into the frames and Monkey's toddling out of the frame to him and his shiny toy the rest of the time. We are also informed that the photographer has to follow some ridiculous "Pose list" before we can move on, so we get the one I like (and we later buy) first, and I mean first-shot of session, here, then we have to go through this circus of poses that WE WERE NEVER GOING TO BUY IN THE FIRST PLACE. After one hour of us trying to get monkey to do all but back handsprings into roundoffs into cartwheels, while taking breaks for photographer to yell and run after her children, we move on to the family poses. By now Hubby and I are exasperated (okay, it's just me that's exasperated, but that's my role in this family) and we sit down to try to get now-bored Monkey to look at the camera and smile through the pain of her permanently blinded retinas. Need I say here that IT DIDN'T WORK!

So I have decided that I have one year to come to peace with the fact that every family portrait for at least 17 years will be off-center in the frame, with one member of the family looking somewhere else and/or not smiling. Oh well, I guess they'll be good for stories later, or perhaps I'll dedicate a scrapbook page each year to a family photograph which I cut and paste out of various different pictures throughout the year where we each look our best and are smiling at the camera. That's actually a great idea.... Frankenportraits, Mwahahahaha!