Glimpses by Jeannette: Dad's 2011 Christmas Present

For several years now, we've given Dad the same present, yet each is unique: portraits of the kids. He found nine 8" by 10" frames at a garage sale, saying we could put a picture of each of us in them. It didn't happen, so we did it for him for Christmas that year...and the next and the next. They still haven't gotten hung up, but having an "offical portrait" of each kid has been nice.

(Warning: lots of photos in this post, even for me.)

Deanna is the most precise about her portrait, which makes it hard for the photographer and helpful at the same time. I like how hers turned out. She hates it. "Yucky, ugly, disgusting," she says of her photos.

If you've ever tried to take a picture by proxy, you know that it's hard. I generally dislike pictures of myself, but I actually like this one. Melody took it, I believe.

Perhaps you'd never guess, but this is the most difficult subject; he's always gone, or needs to shower after work, and says, "You have five minutes," and literally sets his alarm. Plus, he's not like Amy; he's like me and can't smile on demand. However, he has a good smile if he cooperates, and I like his picture.

This is my best subject, generally. Perhaps because she enjoys taking photos too, she is cooperative and it helps that she's very photogenic-and you can't tell when her smiles are fake. Instead, we have to be careful we don't get one of her smiling too large!

Amy is hard and easy for the same reason: she looks exactly the same the whole shoot. She's always been photogenic. She puts on a smile at the beginning and holds it as long as she stays. Only if you look closely can you tell when it starts getting put on.

Well, this one's running for hardest...though unlike his older brother he likes having his picture taken, he smiles goofy. I can hardly get a decent smile out of him. They're fine for fun photos, but not portraits.

This little guy is fun to take, and this year, both of his photos are my favorites. He's so adorable and his eyes-and whenever you get to see his Curious George smile, that's fun.

This one would be happy to have me take her picture between every other person-and it might work better that way, because when it comes to actually, "Do this, smile," she gets quickly tired of posing. Still, she's so cute that just about every picture is a good one. Her picture is cute, but I'm not completely satisfied with it.

I was afraid I wouldn't be able to do the Christmas photos this year. I could not find a time that Eric was home (and would allow me to take his picture) and it was hard to find a time with Deanna too. Dad worked overtime some this month, which helped. I actually ended up taking some upstairs in our room while Dad was here.

The Christmas ones I didn't feel like setting up a backdrop, so I kept hoping it would snow so I could take them outside by the poison berry bush, which was partly why I didn't know if I'd be able to get them done. But we finally got our Christmas tree, and I took them in front of it. I would have put some of them on when I did the post about decorating, but of course I didn't want Dad to see them.

Kristen, session one selections:

Paulie:

See what I mean about Paul?

Kristen, session two:

Melody tried to teach Kristen how to bat her eyes like Deanna did when she was little. She didn't quite get the idea.

I like this one, but unfortunately the hair in her face made it inappropriate for her Christmas picture.

I'm not sure what this face is for, but it's pretty funny:

Tim:

See why I have trouble with him?

The first ones didn't turn out well, though it was as much because I couldn't get the color right as his goofy faces, so we tried again.

She has to be in the mood, but it's fun when she is; this is Sassy Mrs. Claus.

I don't know why I was supposed to take a picture of her back. I was using the zoom lens when I took most of the Christmas photos, so I couldn't zoom out any more.

Deanna and her horse

Another session was needed, and this time we thought of someone.

Probably thinking of Ramin Karimloo, one of her current singer obsessions, in this one.

Not sure about this one. Probably Michael Buble, her other singer obsession.

She was trying to be serious, but when I told her to think of Mercy, she laughed.

And when I told her to think of a certain person they saw several years ago at Savers...let's just say that I'm not describing him here.

Not sure about this one.

"Do I look like the heavenly host?"

Not really, Deanna.

Amy:

She hardly changes!

This cute picture was her idea:

I do not like being in front of the camera; besides not enjoying looking at pictures of myself, I can't see the pictures-and as I wrote that I realized it's contradictory, yet still true. If I need to have my picture taken, I want to see it. It's frustrating to not be able to adjust it myself, and hard to explain to someone else.

I can't smile for pictures; either it's obviously fake, or I'm laughing and you can't see my eyes.

I dislike this picture, but I am consciously trying not to be too picky about pictures of myself. I think that, at least for me, it's a pride issue or something. Often, I dislike my voice on recordings and pictures of me but no one else thinks anything of them, and I see others who say they look awful in that picture when they look fine, and have decided that I just need to accept the way I am. God made you the way you are and you cannot change it, so you ought to accept it.

Obviously, I only mean things you can't and shouldn't try to change, like the way you look, not sin and such-but sometimes it annoys me when people need to clarify things like that that are obvious. We understand what you're saying, I think. Please, continue.

Melody:

Eric's started turning out pretty well.

I like this one!

Then, as my allotted five minutes were ending, I remembered that his Christmas picture was supposed to be horizontal to fit into our twelve picture frame.