When you have your first child (and I suppose this pattern follows for every additional child you have) you are told one thing repeatedly by every mother, brother, sister, in-law and out-law you know. You must get pictures of the baby. And no, your puny 35mm camera will not do. And no, your $300 digital camera won't do either. You must take that child and spend beaucoup money on pictures made by "professionals."
First, let's discuss the loose language that leads people to call a Sears/JC Penney/WalMart/KMart employee a photography professional. What they really are is a retail employee with better equipment than you'll ever have. Now don't get me wrong, Laurie, our Sears associate, was very good. And she was patient, which was needed. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Our son was 5 months old on Friday and Saturday was his first trip to a photographer (ie, Sears.) My boss, who does photography as a hobby, did take some pictures when he was much younger, and they're great, but they were all at my home.
We dressed the boy up in a nice, Springy yellow outfit. He was as cute as ever. We loaded him in the car and made the 10 minute drive to Sears from our home. We weren't 2 minutes in when he started grunting. (For to-be-parents, that means he's pooping.) AND BOY DID HE! The grunting went on for several minutes, which is extremely bad.
I had minor feelings of alarm, thinking it was possible that he had pooped through the diaper and possibly ruined the outfit. We got to Sears and my wife (with a cold, God bless her) took him into the women's restroom and came out quickly saying only, "It's bad. It was dripping."
I took him because there was more room in the men's restroom. I had my wife run and tell them we were here, but we were delayed. So I laid him on the diaper deck to find that we had 3 measley little wet wipes. So I'm using wet paper towels to clean the boy who had pooped through the diaper, up his back, down his legs and into a pool in the bottom of his carseat. He's screaming like I'm beating him with a reed and the gentlemen passing in and out of the restroom were so helpful with their, "Somebody's not happy" comments.
After much work, I got him into a fresh diaper and a clean outfit (not nearly as cute.) He got one pose, one snap of the shutter before he spit up all over that shirt. Laurie (photographer) decided to do diaper shots. Way to think on your feet Laurie. So she and my wife did that while I ran out into Sears and bought more baby clothes. By this point he's tired of being changed and changed again, he's hot, he's just fussy. We managed to get in about 8 poses. Which is the minimum.
Most of the pictures are cute, which is a credit both to Laurie and to just how cute my son could be with a tiny bit of effort to smile or be in a good mood. And they did several "enhancements" which were great as well. But all told, it was a minor disaster. So the next time my mother, my sister-in-law, or anyone else demands pictures, I will punch them in the gut and walk away.
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2 comments:
Picture places are too expensive, doncha think? Yeah... they may have the cute backdrops and props. I guess I am getting used to just having the candids I take around the house. Real life... less expense.
I like your blog... thanks for letting me check it out again. Have a great week!
Heidi...thanks. Its nice to have a fan. LOL
Raquel...we haven't yet. It turns out our JCPenney's here in town doesn't have a portrait studio, so we need to go to Nashville to use them. But we've still got them (on the mantle actually) and we'll use them maybe when he gets just a bit older, and is able to sit up on his own maybe.
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