Every family has one – a mother, cousin, grandparent or aunt who obsessively shoves the camera in everyone’s face at family functions. This special family photographer is always around for opportunities for family photos, no matter how unflattering they may be. You can run, but you can never hide from the unforgiving lens.
As a child, my grandmother was the biggest offender, taking pictures of me “eating” chocolate cake, watching television, or running around in a diaper. Then, of course, I hated the thought of being photographed at such inopportune moments. Now, as I look at the albums upon albums of all those fleeting moments, I have to say that I am sort of glad that my grandmother was as aggressive as the Hollywood paparazzi when I was young.
My family went to a backyard barbecue at my aunt’s house never expecting that we would walk away with one of the best family photos we had ever taken together. The four of us were sitting around with our burgers when grandma came around with the camera. She snapped a perfect shot…my sister had a mouthful of burger, my mother was mid-conversation with my father who was obviously not listening, and I happened to see the camera and winked. A perfect candid photo! When grandma emailed it to us (yes, she does that, too), we all got a good laugh out of it and decided to share it with everyone else. We used this ridiculous picture in our Christmas photo cards. I have to say, we got a lot of positive feedback from the recipients of the card…some loved it, some thought it was a mistake and others thought it was posed. But I had to hand it to my grandma… her persistent camera-clicking was a big hit this year!