family portraits

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dad from day one: Our First Professional Family Portrait Session

Week 18 (4 months).

It’s funny how despite the hundreds of pictures we have taken of Jack each month since he was born in November, there are hardly any that include him with my wife and I together; in other words, no family portraits.  On top of the practicality issue, there’s also the fact that we are very particulate about our pictures not looking cheesy.  The best photographer in the world is Joe Hendricks Photography, who did our “pregnancy pics” which are featured in virtually every episode of Season One of “dad from day one” (1-36).  He also took the picture of Jack asleep on Thanksgiving Day, the one that you see featured at the top of this website as my banner.  Joe Hendricks is always my first choice.

However, I will also give “mad props” (that’s my salute to the year 2003) to JC Penney.  They have this program called “Portrait Perks” and it is definitely worth being a part of.  My wife took Jack to get his pictures taken back in December for our Christmas cards/birth announcements and we were very pleased with the results. Then over this past weekend we went back to JC Penney to get our first professional family portraits taken and to use our soon-to-expire $50 store credit we earned from our “Portrait Perks” program.  We were in and out in about an hour and 15 minutes, and after using our $50 credit, our bill was only $4.95.

Granted, we only bought about five of the 30 shots and we don’t own the copyrights to the pictures, but still I can legally share them with you today if you click on the link at the very end of this entry.  I should note that neither Joe Hendricks or JC Penney is paying me to say good things about them.  It’s just that I’m a firm believer that when someone does something right, you should say something.  Because sometimes it’s too easy to listen to negativity.  I don’t want to add to the noise.

If you’ve been keeping up with the last two “special episodes” of  “dad from day one”, you know that Monday, March 27th is the long awaited for, miraculously conceived big day, when I start my new job.  Thank God!  Infinite times!  For me, these family portraits I am sharing with you today represent the happy ending to nearly four dramatic months and the winter season, as well as the new beginning (symbolized by the color green) of our life here in Alabama.  A life that, thanks to God’s miraculous providence and not some major coincidence, is feeling pretty good right about now.

Okay, click here to see the pictures I’m referring to.

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Why Do People Have to Smile When They Get Their Picture Taken?

The Shell’s Christmas 1986

My sister and I weren’t good at getting portraits made when were young. I would cry because I was afraid I’d fall off the stand they put me on. And my sister would get mad at the photographer as he tried to make her laugh by waving a squeaky bunny at her.

In our house growing up, one of our family portraits hanging up in the hallway was our Christmas ‘86 picture where my sister was making a mean face at the camera. I looked sneaky and scared. My mom looked like everything was normal. And my dad looked like he was thinking, “Let’s just get this over with”. Classic.

So it was only natural after walking by that picture several times a day I would eventually ask my mom, “Why do we have to smile when we get our pictures taken?” Because all my life experience up until that point had only shown me it was a chore.

The concept of always smiling in pictures is at least a little bit goofy. While I’m sure I smile and laugh a lot during any given day, I couldn’t say that during the majority of my awaken hours I am smiling.

When a picture is taken, it is not to capture the image of a person how they are most of the time, but instead, to capture the image of a person at their best. It’s the same way that our memories tend to work, as well.

The Good Ole Days are good because we are choosing to remember them at their best. We subconsciously overlook the stressful, sad, annoying, and boring parts of the story.

We are left with only the good parts- The Good Ole Days. Like Lucky Charms cereal with just the marshmallows. So is the concept of smiling in pictures. Only the good parts are frozen in time.