Family Pictures: The Jorgensens

I tried my hand at taking family pictures again for my sister Lindsey and her family; they really wanted to give some photos for Christmas gifts this year, so I agreed to it. FAMILY PICTURES ARE SO HARD. I know it takes a lot of practice to become more comfortable doing this, but it seems that everything that can go wrong will go wrong at family picture time. As the photographer, it is your job to make all the kids happy, get them to look at the camera, make the parents feel at ease, and make all the smiles look genuine at the same time. Most of the pictures turned out something like this:

I loved them because, to me, they were funny. But as a mother you want to give pictures away of your kids smiling like little angels, not screaming. These were the only sort-of-real-looking smiles I got that night of the boys (seriously, this is the closest Kanyon came to smiling):

Maybe family members are harder to do pics with because they know you?? I'm not sure, but it really is a learned talent to get kids to feel at ease and smile, and I need a lot more practice. Why can't you just be good at what you want to do right off the bat? I love taking pictures. Seriously, love it. But to make money doing it, there is so much more to it than snapping your shutter at people. Dang it.

That same day, I did the family pictures for Lindsey's brother and sister-in-law. I got a few more that I liked from them; they got there about a half-hour before Lindsey and Kelly did, so they got the better late-afternoon light.

Help! I'm one of ten thousand people in Utah who want to do photography, but I don't want to put myself out there to take all the crappy pictures I need to take for people so I can learn my lessons and become good enough that people will want to pay for me to take their pictures! Ugh.