Photo Envy

I don’t know about you, but my Pinterest feed is currently filled with adorable fall family pictures and ideas for a photo shoot. October and November are great months to grab your camera (or a photographer), coordinate your entire family’s outfits, and plan an afternoon in some quiet location where the visitors are few and the views are plenty – and plenty beautiful at that! Sprawling branches slowly shedding their bright colors of red, orange, and yellow dangling leaves burst out from behind a laughing family sitting on a pretty quilt in the grass. Husband and wife cuddle close in front of a rustic red barn (where do these people FIND these barns?!) Brothers and sisters put their arms around each other and smile “CHEESE!” at the clicking camera. Looking at these perfectly-timed shots creates something deep and dark in the pit of our souls. Photo envy.

Photo envy propels us to create these moments of joy, even as mom stands behind the photographer shooting death rays from her eyes at a child who just. won’t. cooperate. Ah, family photos. A magical time for all.

Well… not really.

As parents of special-needs kids, we have the same desire for giant framed canvas prints of our perfectly posed (or captured in a joyful moment) families to adorn our living room walls. We have photo envy too. I mean clinical photo envy. We want those “perfect” pictures framed on our fireplace mantle too. But I wonder how many of us even try to do it because we know how hard we will have to work to make it happen? It’s not just about the work that it takes, either. That makes us sound lazy. It is a huge stress that maybe we don’t have the energy to deal with right now. It’s also about the toll it takes on our kids. To put them in uncomfortable clothing that they will try to rip off or alter in some fashion in the middle of the park, expect them to sit or stand where and how we tell them to… And what about the fallout that might happen the next day when their body is done processing all of that information?

I understand. I’ve been there. It’s one of the reasons why it’s taken so long to do it. We’ve not lacked a willing photographer. I just never made the effort. It got put on the “that’s a good idea for the spring when it warms up” list. And then when spring arrived, it was moved to the “family photos will look better in the fall with all those colors on the trees.” Sometimes, life just happens.

But I want to give you some encouragement so that Pinterest family photos don’t scare you away as you consider everything you’d have to go through, or put your family through to get those prints up on the walls.

First of all, you need to know – really know – this about anyone who posts anything for public viewing:

They show you what they want you to see.

They want you to see the cute clothes and boots. They want you to see the perfectly tamed scarf. They want you to see perfectly behaved children doing exactly as they’re supposed to do, which is to capture an image of the life they want you to think they have. Except they don’t. Because I don’t care how great everyone looks – you know ugly words have passed through those sweetly smiling lips and tears have cascaded down that mom’s perfectly rouged cheek. No one is perfect.

Somehow, we think for a moment as we see pictures like these  that they must have it all together to be able to get these kinds of photos. Don’t kid yourself.

Just as a disclaimer, I’m not trying to knock those adorable family photos – because truth be told, that’s what I want too! And they are adorable! They are canvas-worthy. There is nothing wrong with that.

But I think it’s safe to say that we special-needs parents have learned to do things differently. We’ve learned how to deal with all kinds of situations, and we go to extreme lengths to prepare our kiddos with different needs to ensure as much success as possible. We’ve learned that a little preparation goes a long way. Reading through a social story together might be all it takes for Sam to be okay with what we’re doing. Showing him pictures of where we’ll be and what we’ll do helps him visualize our activities better, so it’s not such a shock to his system when we are actually there. Simply talking through the day and what activities will be done and in what order helps a child better transition from one thing to the next.

We have never done this kind of family photo shoot before. We have had family pictures taken at Christmas or Easter in front of my parents’ stone fireplace hearth, or on the front porch under a pretty iron decoration on the wall. My brother happens to be a photographer. He’s not a professional in that it’s his job; however, he taught himself photography skills, has a camera that I seriously have to repent of for coveting, and he’s darn good at it. But that’s different than a full-fledged photo shoot. To make a long story short, a friend who does photography as a hobby offered to take our family pictures for us. I couldn’t turn that down!

That morning though, we explained in detail what we were going to do that afternoon, why, and tried to talk about what it might look like. Samuel is on the autism spectrum, and thanks to therapy, he is now pretty high-functioning. But transitions are still hard for him, new places can be difficult to process, and if he doesn’t want to do something, we may as well try to take family photos with a squirrel.

I had the idea though, that if I included Sam in the preparations, he would feel more in control of things and less likely to melt down or not cooperate. I asked Sam if he would look at some of those Pinterest pictures so he could get ideas for different poses he wanted to do, and promised he would get to be in charge of telling everyone where to stand for those particular pictures. It was too much for him to choose from, so he didn’t have anything in mind when we got there. But our youngest son (8 years old) wanted to do a “throwing leaves in the air” pose (pictured above.) We all had fun with that one! Sam did get to take a few pictures (carefully supervised) with our friend’s camera and do an “actor’s pose” as he called it. (It’s the one further down where all 3 of them look like they’re trying to get up a hill.) We used that as a reward for doing well with the other pictures first. It worked!

After a two-hour session, my friend had shot over 600 pictures of us. We actually had a pretty fun afternoon, and Sam did remarkably well! I’m not sure if it’s because it was just a good day for him, though the morning didn’t start out very well, or if it’s due to the limited preparation I did with him, but I am thrilled with the results. I actually had a harder time getting my 11-year old son to really smile, and not just turn up the corners of his mouth while staring blankly into the camera. My husband made some dumb juvenile jokes he knew they would laugh at, and that helped brighten his eyes more. But we still had those weird issues of one kid looking at another in a weird way, another hamming it up for the camera, and the third kind of in-between the two with a non-toothy smile and highly elevated eyebrows, as if to say, “SEE?! I’m SMILING!”

Out of those 600+ pictures, I did exactly what I described above. I posted the pictures I wanted everyone to see. Maybe it was kind of to prove to myself that our family can look just as good as anyone else. They just might have a little more… “personality”. I’ll be honest though – I used the Windows Live Gallery app on my computer to swap out a few faces so we had a couple of pictures that weren’t completely authentic, but looked great with everyone smiling the “right” way.

These are not those pictures.

     We have a lot of pictures where kids are being goofy, not looking at the camera (which is fine with me for those “laughing in the moment” shots,) or posing in kind of weird ways. That’s okay. Those pictures are the ones that show our kids how they really are and how they honestly interact with each other. And it doesn’t always look “canvas-worthy.”

These boys just makes me laugh:

I’m putting some of those pictures on my wall too, right alongside the truly “good” ones. Because those pictures show our life as it is, not what we want it to look like. We should be proud of the life we live with our children, and showcase them for who they are!

If they can really smile for the camera, go for it. Bribe them with ice cream, or whatever you know they will work hard for. Here’s the thing – if you KNOW they are capable, it’s okay to expect them to rise to the occasion (depending on your circumstances that only you can determine.) But if you KNOW that they will absolutely HAVE to hold an unusual item that they must have or else they explode, let them hold it. Don’t crop it out of the picture either. It’s part of what makes your family so unique. No one else is going to have a picture on their wall with a kid gripping the “W” piece from their alphabet puzzle (well, it’s highly unlikely that anyone else will have that!) Years later when the “W” has given way to something new, you’ll look at that picture and remember.

That’s what these family photos are all about. Capturing who you are as a family so you will remember. Hopefully, you will remember fondly. It may be a bittersweet remembrance of the trials of that age, but you’ll also remember the grace of God in moments of joy and blessing during that time as well. Hopefully, the latter will outweigh the former.

Here are a few tips to encourage you if you’re considering braving a family photo shoot:

Get out those cameras before winter takes over (unless you like that scenery) and take some time to take pictures with pretty scenery. Maybe that’s your local state park (ours was the county park), or wherever you find those random barns, or even your own backyard.(And please let me know where you found a barn!)

If going outside is difficult for your child, tidy an area of the house that looks nice and use that for your “studio.” And don’t worry about hanging burlap banners behind you either. (You can Photoshop those in later!)

If you want to attempt it, go ahead and try to get everyone to smile nicely. Make jokes to spark their eyes so their whole face is smiling and not just the corners of their mouths.

Let your kids be kids. It’s okay if they’re not looking directly into the camera and are looking off somewhere else that’s caught their attention. It’s okay if some of your pictures have a blur in them from your child’s flapping hands. It’s called “special effects.”

Don’t be intimidated by the “perfect family” photos you see everywhere. Remember – looks are deceiving. You don’t know the motherly death rays it took to get their kids (or even spouse!) to look like that. You can’t see the mom or dad yelling to the photographer behind a toothy grin, “JUST DO IT!” (We’ve all done it. It’s okay to admit it.)

Your family pictures may not look like the “perfect” family you wanted hanging on your walls. But it’s your family. It’s the family you live with, and love every single day. Love those pictures that aren’t “perfect” because you love who’s in the picture.

Then frame those babies! They are totally canvas-worthy.

Like this one: