Adventures In Home Portraiture

So Terri wanted to send some pretty family pics out to her Dad in Alberta. Lydia just got a purdy new outfit and I just got a fancy new camera - hey, this should be fun and easy...

Sunday afternoon - still seedy from the Neil show the night before - I hauled out the tripod, found the timer switch on the camera, put on my cleanest t-shirt, shaved (reluctantly), and set out monkeying with all of the manual and automatic features of the camera to see which would yield the best results. I took many test shots of me and the cats (naturally). It was quite the shitty and grey day, so lighting was going to be an issue - my options were to use the dull, dim window light, the built-in flash, or my massive detachable Transformer-looking flash from the 1970s. I have been advised that my detachable flash would fry the electronics in my camera, and all of my attempts at ambient lighting looked pretty blurry and/or yellow and pathetic - so, I had little choice but to use the built-in flash (I know these details are just super interesting to read)...

Meanwhile, Terri was prepping the little missus, who was slipping from wide-eyed alertness to total hobo unconsciousness to ravenously hungry and back again. Our windows of opportunity were fleeting...

We set up in front of the loveseat. Then the fireplace. Then the piano. I snapped picture after picture (after picture after picture): "Oh look, she's in focus but we're not." "Oh, your eyes are closed." "She's crying in that one." "Red eyes." "Blurry." "You're not smiling." "You can see up her dress." "That flash is so harsh." "Her eyes are closed in that one. And that one. And that one." "Wow, I look like a junkie in all of these - Merry Christmas from your disgusting son-in-law!" "No, that is the stereo remote in my pocket, I swear..."

Anyone who's ever tried to pose with and position an infant not-yet-capable of supporting their own head will feel our pain. The results are at once cute and pitiful and humbling and funny and wholly unusable; truly, an accurate document of the day. That said, none will see the light of day. Ever.