hoping to win at toddler portrait roulette

By Rachel Ostlie

Here's a Baby Bunching joke for you: What's worse than a photo shoot with a toddler? A photo shoot with TWO toddlers!

Ever since the birth of my little baby, I have played the game of portrait roulette. You know... the one where you get all excited, place your bets, eagerly anticipate, and... lose it all.

I would see photos of friends' babies. And friends of friends' babies. And Anne Geddes babies. And I would imagine that some day, some how, I would end up with a breath-takingly beautiful shot of my babies.

Short weeks after the birth of my little boy, we took our family of four to Target for a portrait session. My first idea was to dress everyone in black, and the babies could wear black diaper covers. This shot almost didn't go off, since there was quibbles about my 18-month-old daughter posing topless. “They may not print it,” the photographer said. “They are very picky about these things.” We decided to try anyways (and they did, indeed print it). This was probably the best of all our whole-family photo shoots, since my big baby didn't have too many fully-developed opinions yet, and my little baby slept through most of it. We even got a sweet kissing shot.

Every portrait session after that has ended in tears. My daughter actually starts crying when we enter into a portrait studio. Any studio. Sears. JC Penney. Target. We tried all of them. For a while, we would get a nice photo of my son, and so-so one of my daughter, in which her eyes were red and still filled with tears, but at least we had managed to coax some kind of laugh out of her.

But a picture of the two of them together? Forget about it. One attempt, when the kids were 6 months and 22 months old, gave us two priceless shots. Shot number one, big baby has a stranglehold on little baby, who is peering out over her arm with a “help me!” look of desperation. Shot number two, they are holding hands (so cute!) but my daughter is crying and my son is yelling, his baby belly sticking out from under the bottom of his shirt.

At Christmastime we attempted a shot of the whole family. I was excited, since big baby now knew how to smile on command. We practiced, got all excited, and she even decided to wear a tutu. No luck with the smiling though. We got our family picture, but had to settle for the “at least everyone is looking at the camera” pose.

Last weekend we finally called a favor in and had a close friend do an outdoors photo shoot. This was the best idea ever, since they would already be familiar with the photographer, and we would feel no pressure regarding time or space. We spent over an hour in a forest preserve, and then went downtown to catch the urban feel. The outfits looked great, my sister-in-law was along to help with the kids, we worked around the kid's nap schedule, we had TONS of fun, and we topped the day off with fantastic Puerto Rican sandwiches called jibaritos. I just got the photos back yesterday, and I eagerly looked through them. Good shot of my almost-3-year-old girl? Check. Good shot of my rowdy 17-month-old boy? Check. Good shot of my husband and I, looking totally in love and very cool? Check. A picture of the toddlers together... Hmmm. Let me look again... Sigh. Nothing. And, the holy grail of Baby Bunching family photography? The natural, beautiful, family photo? Um... Next time we might have to call in Indiana Jones.

[Editor's note: With holiday season rapidly approaching, stay tuned for more on this topic.]

Comments

[mandie]

Yeah, I've pretty much accepted the fact that our upcoming holiday photo session will end in tears. Baby tears, toddler tears, mommy tears ... there will be tears. We're just photographing the kids to maximize our chances of getting ONE good shot for holiday cards ... but really? I don't have much hope of that happening, so I'm REALLY hoping to just get one good shot of each kid separately. God made 2-photo holiday cards for a reason. (For 2u2 moms.)

[Alisha]

We have a nice camera and do pictures of the kids ourselves. We figure it's not worth the hassle of taking them to a studio where the photographer may or may not know what s/he's doing and the studio might be running behind... I bribe the kids with M&Ms and can usually get a cute or at least usable shot. But of course this means no good whole family shots...

[brenda]

HAHAHAHAHAHA! This is the best post ever - and the reason I am the QUEEN of photoshop. Take a smiling head here, place it there. Take another sort of smile here, also place it there. That is the only way I was able to "make" a decent Christmas card with my family of 4. Good luck, bunchers!!

[Rachel O.]

Thanks for everyone's comments and support! I wrote this post several weeks ago, and am just printing the photos today. Though I'm still crestfallen that we didn't end up with any whole-family shots, the individual shots are truly beautiful. More and more I'm with Alisha. Take your own pictures, or get a friend with time and patience to take them for you. Then print them at Wolf Camera or something. Cheaper, less stressful, and probably more productive.

[Nicole]

I can definately relate to this. Two years ago when I only had my daughter, it was so easy at the photographer that I foolishly thought I should go alone last year with a 1 year old and newborn. Big mistake! It was a nightmare as my toddler wouldn't stop running around yelling and the photographer
didn't seem to understand that my 4 and 1/2 month old couldn't hold his body up by himself. This year I have a 31 month old, a 16 month old, and a 2 month old and I'm thinking I'll need to bring my mom, a few pounds of m&ms and possibly Elmo himself to try and get a decent kids picture! :)

[Toddlers]

I had fun reading your article. The way you've described is wonderful.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufgy3yLebnA I haven't had a problem, I must say i'm really blessed. I just had a photo session with my two year old and two months old and it went fine.