Family Photoshoot Winner
September 24, 2022 – Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA
The worst day of the year started early for Lester Green. His clothes were laid out for him on the bed – a flannel shirt and new khaki pants. His two young sons, Bo and Baylor, wore matching outfits. His wife, Veronica, woke up at 5 am to make sure her dress and hair were exactly right. It was family picture day – the day when everyone put on clothes they did not like and faked being happy.
Lester tolerated waking up early on a weekend. He did not mind the thirty-minute drive to catch the good light out in a field. It was the posing he hated. He was not a model and could not pretend to be one. As soon as a camera was pointed at him, his body contorted to unnatural angles. His face clenched as if his mother-in-law was pinching his behind.
At the location for his latest embarrassment, Lester stood among wheat-colored weeds trying to hide behind his wife and kids. The precious photographer, LeAnn Jolie, talked about the sunrise and clouds in the same kind of tone she would use while picking out a puppy.
“This is going to be so gorgeous, y’all. I cannot believe how perfect this is,” LeAnn cried. “Why don’t we start with something I’ve been using with my wedding clients. I want you to all hold hands and run toward me while you look at each other.”
“I’m not doing that,” Lester grumbled to his wife.
“Oh c’mon. It’ll be fun,” Veronica eagerly replied.
With LeAnn’s guidance, Veronica lined up her family. She and Lester were positioned in the middle. Lester held hands with Veronica and his daughter, Berlin, who was dressed like her mother. Bo and Brady were positioned on the ends. The lineup went boy, girl, boy, girl, boy.
“Okay, jog toward me,” LeAnn called. “Smile big and raise your hands in the air.”
Lester let himself be dragged along, but he looked at the ground instead of the camera. LeAnn took a million snaps. CLICK, CLICK, CLICK, CLICK.
“Lester, you gotta keep your head up,” LeAnn called. “Let’s see that smile. Act excited. Let’s try it again.”
“I was smiling,” Lester grumbled to his wife.
“I think she knows what a smile looks like,” Veronica replied unsympathetically. “If she says you need to smile better, then you do.”
The family lined up and took another run at LeAnn. This time, she said they needed to look at each other and swing their arms more.
Lester put on his fakest smile for attempt number three. Instead of complimenting him, LeAnn said that he needed to loosen up. After three more attempts, LeAnn was ready to move on.
“Let’s get you in a circle like you’re doing ring-around-the-rosy. Swing your arms and laugh like you’re having a good time.”
“Spinning around is gonna make me sick,” Lester complained.
“We’ll go slow,” LeAnn said.
As the family rotated, LeAnn stuck her camera in Lester’s face and snapped away. “Smile! Have fun!” she demanded.
Lester dropped the hands he was holding and cried, “No! I’m not having fun and you can’t make me fake it. I feel stupid.”
“Maybe you can take some pictures of the kids for a while,” Veronica suggested to LeAnn. “Lester needs a break already.”
LeAnn walked to her car and retrieved a bouquet of flowers. She handed them to Berlin, who posed with her brothers. LeAnn had them play tag and carry each other around piggyback. Then she returned to Lester, who had been watching with his arms folded.
“I’ve got an idea you might like. You don’t even have to smile,” LeAnn said. “All I need you to do is flex your muscles and look macho.”
LeAnn explained that she wanted Lester to hold out his flexed biceps while his young sons hung onto them. His wife and daughter were supposed to look like they were admiring his strength.
“Oh, that sounds cute,” Veronica said sweetly. “C’mon Lester. Give it a try.”
With his sons dangling from his arms, Lester strained to hold them out straight. His face was serious as his wife and daughter giggled and pressed their hands together to show they were impressed.
“There’s my strong man,” LeAnn repeated in a baby voice as she snapped another million pictures. “Now let’s have only the parents. I want to do some closeups with Dad kissing Mom’s forehead. Plus some butterfly kisses.”
Veronica quickly positioned herself in front of Lester and tilted her head so that his lips were pressed over one of her eyebrows.
“Act natural,” LeAnn demanded as her camera clicked away. “Just a little smile, like you’re in love. Pretend I’m not here.”
“No, I can’t pretend,” Lester cried. “It’s not natural. I hate this. I’m done for the day. You can take the rest of the pictures with my wife and kids.”
He stormed off to his car and got into the driver’s seat. He looked down to avoid eye contact with anyone in his family.
Thirty minutes later, when Veronica and the kids joined him in the car, Lester knew he was in trouble. His wife huffed dramatically.
“Why can’t you be more mature?”
“I tried. It was all I could take.”
“All I want is a nice picture.”
“I’m not a model. I don’t know how to pose.”
“That’s why you were supposed to listen to LeAnn. That’s why we’re paying her so much money.”
Lester did not dare ask how much they were paying her. Instead, he said, “If we’re paying her, she should do what we want.”
“And what is it you want?”
“Just line up and smile. Take a bunch of shots so you know you’ll get a good one and be done with it. None of this dancing around in a field like we’re in a music video.”
“Professional photographers are paid to make the pictures look interesting. Like real life. No one wants to take pictures of people just standing there.”
“Maybe not the photographers you’re looking for. I guarantee I could find someone happy for us to be standing still.”
“I’d like to see you try.”
The car ride home was quiet and tense. While not much else was said between Lester and Veronica, they did agree that Lester could have a few days to find and schedule a photographer. If the new photographer’s pictures were delivered before LeAnn was finished editing those from her photoshoot, the alternative “standing still” photos might be considered for the family’s upcoming holiday cards.
Lester began his search immediately after pulling into his driveway. He bypassed all the usual wedding and family photographers who popped up in a Google search. Instead, he zeroed in on Cal Withers, who specialized in real estate photography. Cal answered his phone on the first ring.
“I need someone who can line people up, get all the settings right, and take a bunch of pictures,” Lester explained.
“You’re not looking for pictures of your house?”
“Right now, I’m more interested in the people. Do you have a good camera? Can you help me?”
“Well sure. If you don’t want a lot of fancy posing.”
“I do not. Could we do this on Monday night?”
Call agreed and he showed up exactly on time. He carried two bags’ worth of cameras and lights. He looked around the front yard before knocking on the door.
“I figured we can set up one shot inside, one in the front yard and one in the back,” Cal said to Lester.
“Fine by me,” Lester replied.
Cal inspected the house’s interior before settling on a sitting room near the front door. “I like the view from here and how you can catch a glimpse of the hall and the back part of the house.”
“Sounds good to me,” Lester said.
Cal pulled out light stands and a tripod for his camera. He adjusted angles and checked light levels by taking shots of the empty room. Then he called for the family.
Veronica marched in wearing a dress coordinated with the outfits of her husband and kids. Cal let her decide where each member of the family should be positioned. Veronica ended up in the middle of the group, turned slightly away from the camera.
“Take a bunch,” Lester called.
Cal obliged and snapped away. Veronica made some adjustments and Cal snapped some more.
“I think that’s got it,” Cal concluded. “Shall we move outside?”
Cal repeated his operation in the front and back yards. First, he chose a spot which best accentuated the features of the house. Then he set up his camera tripod and adjusted the settings. Finally, Veronica positioned the family into the scene.
“I think that’s a wrap,” Cal said, when he was satisfied with the third batch of shots.
“We’re done so soon?” Veronica asked.
“I think you’ll be happy with the results,” Cal replied.
“Can you send us the files as soon as possible?” Lester asked.
“You got it,” Cal replied helpfully. He emailed a link the next day, which opened a folder full of his photos. A similar link from LeAnn arrived at almost the same time.
“Are you ready to pick your favorites?” Veronica said excitedly to her husband. “We need the very best one for our Christmas cards. The other good ones I can post online.”
As much as Lester wanted to simply say, “You decide,” he wanted to be sure Cal’s pictures were thoroughly considered. He sat in front of his wife’s laptop like he was in a dentist’s chair. “Let’s look at Cal’s first,” he suggested.
Veronica clicked over to Cal’s folder and pulled up the pictures taken in the front room of the house. They showed each member of the family standing at attention. Veronica clicked through until she found one with everyone smiling and looking at the camera.
“See, that looks nice,” Lester said. “Simple. What you expect from a picture.”
“Kind of old fashioned,” Veronica said. While she tried to sound unenthusiastic, her eyes locked on the on-screen image. It was the most flattering picture she had seen of herself in years. She looked so slim and young. She loved her angle toward the camera and how the lighting gave her hair great texture.
“You wanna look at the front yard and back yard pictures?” Lester asked.
“Yeah, okay,” Veronica said, still transfixed by her photograph. She clicked through more of the images. She looked fine in the rest of them, but none were as great as the amazing sitting room shot.
“I think any of these will work,” Lester said with a shrug.
“We haven’t even looked at the ones from LeAnn yet,” Veronica said. She clicked over to LeAnn’s folder and out popped action-packed candid images. Veronica giggled at the ring-around-the-rosy shots with the whole family holding hands.
“You gotta admit these are cute,” Veronica said.
Lester fixated on the awkward facial expressions he wore in the images. He sighed and shook his head like it was painful to keep his eyes on the laptop’s screen. Veronica moved on to the set of pictures in which Lester was flexing with the two boys handing from his arms.
“How about these?” Veronica asked.
Lester stopped sighing and moved closer to the screen. He appeared strong and powerful in these pictures. Holding up his arms disguised his belly paunch. Instead of wearing a goofy grin, his face appeared cool and controlled. While the shots made him the center of attention, they were fun enough to not come across as braggy. Lester could not take his eyes off one in particular.
“These LeAnn pictures have a log of energy,” Veronica said.
“Yeah, some of these would be okay,” Lester said nonchalantly.
“I’m not sure how to decide. I like LeAnn’s style, but I want to be fair to Cal,” Veronica said, while thinking about the still picture of her in the sitting room.
“Yeah, I feel the same way,” Lester added. “Usually I like the Cal-style pictures better, but we did pay a lot for the ones from LeAnn.” Lester snuck another peek at the image of himself flexing.
“Since I got to pick the photographer last year, maybe we should go with your guy this year,” Veronica suggested.
Lester smiled almost apologetically. “If it wasn’t for you, we would have never taken pictures in the first place. You and your photographer know a lot more about this stuff than I do. We should probably go with LeAnn.”
Veronica bit her lip. Lester had picked a strange moment to become cooperative and compromising. Suddenly, Veronica had an idea that might allow her to get the picture she wanted while still saving face regarding her choice of photographers. “To be fair, why don’t we each pick our favorite picture from the other person’s photographer. I’ll pick one from Cal and you pick one from LeAnn. Then we’ll go from there.”
Lester tried not to sound too eager when he answered, “Sounds fair to me.”
Veronica quickly clicked back to the magical shot of her in the sitting room. “If we want something that looks kind of formal, this one isn’t bad.”
For his choice, Lester took charge of the laptop and acted like he was considering all of LeAnn’s shots. When he got to the flexing pose, he said, “If you want something with action, I guess this one’s okay. Kind of silly, but it could be worse.”
Lester and Veronica continued to compromise and play fairly. Once they narrowed down their top two pictures, they found it difficult to only choose one. They each argued they did not want to exclude one of the photographers because of any pre-photoshoot prejudice. In a great show of graciousness and cooperation, they decided to send out two holiday cards, each featuring the top choice from the different photoshoots.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do next year,” said Veronica, late in November when the last of the cards were in the mail.
Lester’s first reaction was to suggest skipping cards next year. He kept his mouth shut, and in the spirit of compromise, simply shrugged his shoulders.
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