On Monday, we finally did it. We got the whole family together with the photographer and he snapped quite a few pictures of us all together. He is an experienced man who has won awards for his photography. We knew it was time to get some sort of family portrait of us all together. Our family scatters over a wide area for jobs and there are lessons and events in addition. So, finding a day when we could all assemble and have a group picture taken was tricky and took more than one try. Naturally, the more tries with failure, the more frustration and impatience.
We had a conference with the photographer before the shot day. He advised us to have everyone dress in the same color and it should be a rather drab one. The idea is to highlight the faces of those in the picture and not have the eye distracted by bright colors or patterns. Just getting the same gray for a 5 year old boy and an extra large man was no easy task and neither was getting women's polo shirts all in the same shade of aqua for little girls and grown women.
We had checked the weather forecast for the hour of the shot in the morning and the probability of rain at the appointed hour (5 PM) was low but the next hour, it was high. We all drove to the local park for the shoot in separate vehicles with unexpected and unappreciated light rain beginning to fall. The man's assistant was wrestling large reflectors in a strong wind that steadily gained strength. I think if it had been just us, we would have run to our cars and hightailed away. He wouldn't give up and arranged us, asked for smiles and looking right here. He got off two or three shots and had us move to a slightly different location a few feet away. He arranged us quickly and got off another couple of shots. Finally, it was totally done and our four vehicles zoomed to a local restaurant for a quick dinner on us.
Of course, we aren't done yet, not until everybody has a copy of something. With this guy, we can spend more than $2,000 for a single copy, 7 feet wide and printed on metal. We don't plan on that option. What we do plan on buying is being negotiated.
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