Christmas Out Takes | Livermore Family Photographer

Chances are if you are checking out this photography blog, you have fought the good fight of getting your family and yourself ready for a professional photography session. Chances are also really good that once the session was over you were ready for a nap!

I can’t tell you how many times I end a newborn/baby/child/family session and the parents take a huge sigh because the organizing and “pressure” of the session is over. I do my best to try to explain that no pressure is needed. I have seen the out takes of a no-pressure session and I have seen the out takes of a session where the parents felt like they needed to perform in someway. I can promise you that coming with a feeling of just kicking back at a park will produce way better results. With that said I have to add that I struggle with the “pressure” feeling at my personal family sessions. Pot calling kettle, come in kettle! Yes, I am a bit of a pot calling the kettle black, here.

So I am going to put myself on the line and show you all some of my own personal “pressure” out takes. To give a little background Makayla was silently sobbing (awesome), Reese wouldn’t stop tucking her chin and tilting her head (such her mothers daughter), Mason will only smile for this parents (we were in the picture so NO smile from him), and my husband who I love dearly is the most stiff person in pictures. Ever. If you know me, you will see my “put on a smile and straighten your chin so it doesn’t double” face on. Are you ready? They are something to laugh about!

Oh boy – I told you it was bad. I look at this picture and I feel my stress! Mason wasn’t looking, Makayla was crabby, and Reese couldn’t put on a straight face to save her life. Please don’t ever tell my husband I put this picture of him online. Ha!

Ok better, but I am still crazy intense.

This was my melting point as well as Makayla’s. I decided to just let it go and if we didn’t get it I would spend hhhhoooouuuurrrsssss head swaping so we were all smiling. Amazing what happened after I took a deep breathe and let go of all my pressure and expectation…..

I got the picture I wanted! Just ordered this canvas today. So the moral of the story is – don’t look like me and freak out that you won’t get the picture you want. The second you let the expectation go, the true personalities comes out and the final product is so much more natural.

Pictures taken by my dear friend Tawnya Marie, edited lightly by myself in photoshop.