Over Christmas, I was given the task to get a good family photo of my husband’s entire family.  I knew that it was going to be daunting task, but I knew that it was feasible. Taking your own family photos is TOUGH!I knew that none of the boys were too interested in getting the photo taken, the kids were hopped up on sugar and a little crabby, and it was SUPER bright. I didn’t notice just how bright it was, but my blue eyed counter-parts DEFINITELY did. It may have took a mix of about 8 photos, but I managed to make one with everyone looking and smiling at the camera (even though one of my brother-in-laws was having quite the issue with the brightness outside).

Although I did get a pretty great photo of all of us, I did want to show a few behind the scenes as to more of what it really looked like 🙂 Here we go…

Just getting set up. I was sitting at the camera trying to direct everyone and get them into the pose I was looking for, and the kiddos were filtering it.

Next we have the photo that I think is the base of the “real” photo…it took some different heads, glasses in someone’s hand to disappear, and of course, an added ME!

The next few you can see the brightness started to get to the more light-eyed family members….

And then we all kind of started to fall apart… I had a great idea that after the shots I got of the kids looking at me, I would connect my phone to my camera from it’s wifi and take the image with me in it that way. I would be able to see myself and could adjust things as needed. I didn’t expect for it not to work….

Plan B was just to use my timer on my camera, and I wasn’t too excited about that. That meant I had 20 seconds to push the shutter and run back into place while everyone tried to keep their kids looking at the camera and not me. AND our dog decided he needed to get in on the action. So I got two photos of me actually in the pictures, and one that he is photobombing.

I don’t know how photographers did it before!!!!! Photoshop seriously saved me on this one. HA!!!

I love these crazy people especially when they bare with me in the freezing cold just for one photo. 🙂