Right In My Own Frontyard

I have had the conversation more than once. With more than one mom and more than one dad. The conversation about not having any photographs of their entire family together.

I can relate to this.

So often we’re out, enjoying ourselves as a family and taking pictures. There are the one’s of the boys, the one’s of Matt and the boys and the one’s of the boys and me. Rarely, if ever, do we ask a stranger to take our picture. I do recall doing that on our last camping trip. The one to Sequoia National Park. We hiked up to an incredible waterfall. Once we were at the falls, we actually slid down the rock face with the boys to plunge ourselves into the ice cold water at the base of the falls. The group of people camping next to us happened to be there as well and we asked them to take our picture with their camera in hopes that they would email it to us someday. I’m sure they had every intention to do so, but, life gets busy and we’ve still never seen that photograph.

So, the only way that I know to have a family portrait taken, is to schedule it with a photographer! We did go out with the Sossaman’s for a “photo shoot” one day not too long ago where we took pictures of their family and they took pictures of ours. They are the only recent photographs of the four of us we have and I love seeing all of us together. A snippet of time captured on film.

Now that it’s the “Holiday Season” it seems like that little alarm is going off in most peoples minds. The alarm that says they want to send out a holiday card with a photograph of their family. For some, maybe most, this is the one time of year they send out a picture to let the people they love and their extended families see how they’ve changed and how the children have grown.

Well, last week, one of our close friends asked if I would take their family portrait. She had the alarm going off. Monica lives across the street with her husband and three kids. They’re from Ireland and well, they’re just awesome. All of them. After I was talking to her about the shoot, what they might wear or where it might be, I walked out her front door to cross the street to go home. At that moment, I saw our neighborhood, our street in a different light. I saw it as the perfect scene for their pictures.

The leaves are beautiful. Yellow and red. The weather has been perfect and overcast and gray and best of all it was right there. In our front yard!

They were so easy to photograph. Monica dressed all of them in blue which against the golden yellow of Fall was amazing. I just love how their personalities shined through, and I have to say that I loved the location. Not only was it beautiful but I had to walk about 20 steps to get there.

Here they are, in all of their glory…The Feely’s