Say Cheese!

Shad has turned into quite the little ham lately. I am starting to think this may be why people traditionally do twelve month pictures and not fourteen. He is all personality right now and has definitely perfected his camera face. Despite the fact I generally try to get candid shots and never in his life have said, "say cheese!" he seems to have grasped the idea all on his own. He absolutely LOVES the camera. He definitely did not get his affection for it from his dad and I don't really think I love pictures either other than to document our lives to a certain degree but I am afraid the creative facial expressions might be my genetics. I remember being told by a friend in college, "you know for how cute you are it is amazing what ugly faces you can make." Granted this was during an "ugly face contest" not in regards to photos but based on a picture they took of me one night when they ran into my dorm room at three in the morning while I was dead asleep and told me to smile with my hair everywhere and my retainers in I am pretty sure I outdo Shad. I swear I don't have a copy of it or I would put it on here. People didn't even believe it was me when I told them. I thought this would be a one day thing for Shad, but if you notice his clothes it is obviously here to stay for a while!

All I did here was sit and hold the camera . . .

It is pretty clear to me I am having difficulty capturing not only well posed shots but decent portraits of my child in general. A week or two ago my good friend came over to help out. Her family just moved back to the states after three long years oversees and I am so excited to have them back! She happens to do photography professionally and has a gift with kids so she offered to give me a hand while she was over. The weather turned out to be a double-edged sword, not a cloud in the sky, gorgeous day which also meant way too bright and direct for decent photos. We had a great afternoon with the kids and catching up but will have to try for frame worthy pictures another day. We got a few photos in general.

Us and the kids

Couple cute shots of Shad out playing. He looks exactly like my little sister did in the second one!

(yes I know the lighting is terrible!)

Jessie's cute kids - -yes she took these and the two of Shad right after it. Pretty obvious even with different equipment (she was downgrading to my camera) and really bad conditions she has a great eye! I would put her info but I haven't asked her. If you are interested in using her or seeing stuff she would consider actually decent (as in-her equipment, decent conditions etc.) leave a comment on my blog and I will get you in touch with her or her photo blog. And I hope she doesn't kill me for tooting-her-horn, she is just really good.

The following are just a couple cute pictures of Shad I have managed to snap myself. After the blooper reel at the beginning I figured he deserved a couple good ones on here too.