You have all probably been there. Every Christmas. Every Thanksgiving. Every freaking holiday you gather around for the big family picture. Aunt Sharon tripods the camera and assigns the person to stand on either end of the frame so nobody is out of the shot. The kids run around like crazy. Everybody chats and jokes. Then comes the “cheese” moment.
“Did it go off yet?”
“Are we done yet?”
“Hurry, get back!”
I ask you, what do we do this for? Taking a dull picture of the family that just goes into everybody’s photo archives and only really serves to show everybody’s aging process. I used to hate it. Everybody did. They needed to be dragged outside so they can stand there for 15 minutes, smile for 1 minute, and then go back inside for more turkey.
The nature of families wanting to get along can sometimes limit interaction to the most conservative of the family members involved. When I pulled out my camera at Christmas to practice my new hobby, I worried that my pictures would be too dramatic, too artsy, in short too different for them. No doubt my fears are unfounded, but it doesn’t matter. All I need to do is look at this picture of my cousins and know that it can be a very good thing to do something different.
Oh, and do you see there in the background? That’s aunt Sharon setting up the shot.
