The Photo Conspiracy

I have an ongoing struggle with my two children to try to get a picture of them together. It is nearing an obsession on my part, and I really think they're plotting against me. I know for a fact that my children are adorable, and I have countless photos of them individually to prove it. But when they get together in the same frame, chaos ensues. I kid you not- they go totally batty.

So to ease my frustration, I have decided to share with you some of our best outtakes from the last three months of photography frustration. They really are quite fun, but none of them qualify as framers... and that's what we're really looking for, the Holy Grail of pictures, the frame-able photo of both children smiling into the camera. Oy, does it even exist?

Great location, great lighting... but what are they doing??

Max's rendition of "Cheese!"

"Louiebalooeybalooeybalooey!!"

There's that tongue again... and in true pirate fashion, Max developed a squint-eye

Cute and artsy, but Louie wanted nothing to do with it. Can you see the annoyance on Max's face?

Smile! Please, just smile!

That's not exactly what I was looking for...

So the hunt will continue. To be honest, I do have some pretty cute pictures from all of these attempts, but it always seems as if something is amiss. If the kids are both smiling, the photo is blurry. If the photo is clear, one or both are doing something silly. Or they're not standing close enough. Or there's something weird in the background. Or there's a booger hanging from someone's nose.

This may be a problem of our generation. With digital photography, we can take a thousand pictures every time we get out the camera... and keep trying until we get the perfect one. When we were kids, our parents snapped a photo and didn't know what they were getting until they got them developed. There was something more real, more authentic about that. Even so, I will continue to snap away in search of The Perfect Photo. Yikes, just wait til we add more kids to the picture!