a family of photographers

On Sunday Allie and I were driving in the car on our way to the park to take pictures of Ann & Matt's family and we saw these beautiful sun rays coming through the clouds. Allie got all excited and said, mom do you think I could take a picture of them even though we're in the car? (man do I love this girl) Of course you can! I said, although I was not very hopeful of the result because the windshield really needs a good washing. I was wrong! You can get beautiful pictures through a dirty windshield! (as long as you don't mind a few dirty blotches) Allie has a great eye.

Tonight I was driving home from a paper flower class at Heartland and I noticed the gorgeous pink sunset which I knew Taylor would love to photograph. So, I called Rich on the phone and told him to let Taylor drop whatever he was doing and encourage him to go photograph the sunset (with the camera strap hung securely around his neck of course!). So when I got home I asked Taylor if he got the great sunset shot and he admitted to climbing a tree to try to get a better view (man I love this kid). I haven't worked with Taylor on composition and that kind of thing as much as I've worked with Allie, but after reviewing the 15 or so pictures he took I could see that he walked around to several different places around the neighborhood and house trying to get the best shot. He didn't just stand in one place and take fifteen of the same pictures (which I'm so guilty of sometimes). One thing I will say is he not afraid to work (or climb trees) to get the good picture!

As for my photo shoot with Ann and her family, well, Daniel was not so happy about having his picture taken except during the rare moment that Allie could get him to forget for a second that his mother was not holding him and make him smile. Max is in the stage that all kids go through where they're concerned about how their smile looks so they try too hard to smile and end up looking worried. No matter how we tried to make that boy laugh, it just didn't quite work. And darling Sammy was distracted by everything else around him, feathers, sticks, ducks, etc. So, needless to say, I've had better shoots, but it sure was fun to hang with the Fanks for an evening and we did get some good pics, but these are actually some of my favorite kind of shots because they tell such a funny story about each personality. This is the best part of my job.