Family Photos

Who Thought It Would Be Easy to Get a Decent Family Photo?

One of the goals of our family gathering was to take a big group family photo. The last one I have was taken when my kids were very young, my sister only had one kid and my youngest sister wasn't even married. It must have been taken in 2002!

I was given the task to coordinate the group family shot. Unfortunately, I left my tripod and home, so I rigged up a structure to hold my camera - it consisted of a lawn chair, two rubbermaid bins and towels. I don't recommend this approach, but it worked for us. I also didn't have my remote shutter release (again, lack of planning on my part), and instead used the interval shooting feature on the camera. With the interval timer, the camera fires off "x" number of shots, waits a time interval, then fires off another round of shots. The user configures "x", the time interval and the number of rounds. I find it to be faster than using the simple delay timer which only yields one exposure. Of course, a capturing a 14 person group is going to be a challenge - you add in toddlers and silly teenagers and you need as many exposures in as little time as possible! The interval timer is feature available on newer cameras, so check your user manual.

This one wasn't too bad and taken early on. I noticed the shots taken earlier were better than the later ones. Must be a function of attention span.


In between intervals, I had to run back to the camera and trigger another set of shots. The camera took a round immediately after I triggered it, so there are always some photos with out me. I wish we had a video camera to capture all the running around in between takes.


When I went through the photos, I thought this one was going to be the keeper:

But there's something amiss - my silly son and his silly rabbit ears behind his cousin!

I ended up cloning them out (it's not the best job, but it will do):


After about 5 takes, the natives were getting restless:


I didn't realize I had lost all control - of my husband!


And with that, the group photo shoot was over. At least we'll always remember how much fun we had taking them!