Last month was family portrait time! Here’s how it came about: Rob’s parents sat the whole family down and told us they had something important to discuss with us. We sat nervously, wondering what was happening. But then Bob just told us he’d like to get family portraits taken and wanted us to look on our calendars to see when we could make that happen. Phew!

A couple of weeks later we found ourselves in The Secret Garden at Thanksgiving Point Gardens. This little spot is one of my very favorites anywhere to shoot.

For this shot I decided a little foreground material would be perfectly nice. It’s tricky taking portraits when you’re also in the picture, but we managed.

We get asked all the time what the secret is to get a shot with everyone not only looking at the camera, but also looking basically happy while doing it. There are a few tricks that we could get in trouble with other photogs for sharing 😉 but I’m just trying to keep it real.

1) Use a timer so the kids watch the blinking light and wait for it to flash; 2) Take a million frames; 3) Let the kids take turns using the remote;
4)Photoshop. I don’t even want to tell you how many heads we have to swap out to get a cohesive group picture… So there you go. Stress less about getting a perfect shot. We never get “the” shot when it comes to large groups. We create it. Most professionals do, unless they have professionals for kids.

Soon after this the kids started breaking down so we didn’t worry about getting individual shots. You can only do what you can do, you know? But we were able to get one of Rob’s brother and sister with their significant other.

With love,
The Snow Family

PS. We received a very sweet message from Bob regarding the portraits. I thought I would save it here.
”Robby and Julie thank you so much for such beautiful pictures. They are all amazing and will be treasured for many years by everyone. Thanks for spending many long hours on the editing. You two have a wonderful gift for bringing out the color and texture of life. You have such great patience with everyone, especially the small children. These memories are now frozen in time and when seen over the years, bright vivid memories will rush to our minds, soft feelings reminding us of a wonderful time in each of our lives. Shared by so many over and over.”