Credle Family: Taking Pictures

I love taking pictures. I've always loved taking pictures. Now that I have two sweet babies to photograph, I love taking pictures even more. Cliff and I have taken the babies to have their pictures made at several studios since they've been born. Though we've gotten a few good pictures, overall we've been pretty dissatisfied. It is not because we had a bad photographer, and certainly not because we had difficult subjects (haha), we just never had enough time to spend in the studio! It takes many shots, usually over many days, to get good pictures of babies and toddlers.

Last year one of my best friends came over in early December and took some Christmas pictures of Anabella and Daniel. Mary's pictures far exceeded any that we'd had made in a studio (I'll post them later when I do my December 2010 post- probably next year!). Part of the credit goes to Mary because she's a terrific photographer (skilled, patient and very creative). But part of the credit also goes to having a good camera with a wide lens. So, for Mother's Day/Father's Day this year, Cliff and I bought a nice camera so that we could capture Daniel and Anabella in action on our own terms and stay out of the studio.

One of the things I learned from Mary is that lighting is key in photography. (Don't worry, this is the only thing I know about photography, so I promise not to blog on this). Outdoor pictures usually turn out best when the sky is overcast. When using natural light indoors, the same holds true.

So, one rainy Monday, when it was too messy to go out anywhere anyway, I dressed up my little ones and set out to get a picture (ideally of the two of them together) for the Christmas card. Anabella loves dress up. She loves dresses (and shoes). Daniel does not like dressing up (or dressing at all for that matter- the kid would run around naked if we let him; he has barbarian tendencies). Needless to say, they dressed. And I took pictures!! Lots of them!!

Two of these pictures are in our Christmas card. The others are just ones that I thought were worth sharing. Some were taken on the dreary Monday; others were taken when the Credles were here last weekend. They are sending a family picture of them with Daniel and Anabella. If LaRue had her way, Solomon and Shilee would be on the card too. I will post their best pictures as well, though, sadly, they didn't make anyone's holiday card this year. And Solomon even posed! Sorry, Sol. Maybe next year.

This was candid, and I wish I he would have stayed there longer because I love these pictures of him looking in the mirror.

Daniel just may become a photographer himself. Not only did he give me the mirror pictures, but he then went to the front door and peered out, which gave me the idea of snapping shots from outside of them looking through the glass. Fabulous idea but not when it's pouring rain. I didn't stay out there long.

I took their lead on this since it was obvious that my idea of them sitting in their rockers by the Christmas tree was a bad one. We tried the stairs.