Roadside Family Portrait

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, we had the opportunity to get a different kind of family portrait made. To make a long story short, an amazing photog from California was traveling around the country doing a seminar tour and decided to start this Pay-It-Forward project. He photographed almost 30 photographers' families and then challenged them to photograph other photographer's families. He did my friend, Jake's, family and Jake picked us for his family. The point of the session is to show where everyone in the family is at in their lives right now and how they're all connected even living separate lives. The rules were to wear what you want or something that says who you are right now, bring something of yours that is about you. No one had to match. No one had to smile. No one even had to look at the camera. We picked a location just off the road near our house. It's in the middle of nowhere, but we figured we live in the middle nowhere so it seemed to fit.

As requested everyone wore what they wanted (well, except Calli, who didn't have a say). I pulled out all of Lana's dress up clothes and told her to wear whatever she wanted. She ended up with two crowns, a number of bracelets (that somehow got left in the car), a few necklaces, a pair of sunglasses (again car) and a pair of poofy high heels that I never thought a two-year-old could walk in let alone across gravel and such. Brent decided on his standard t-shirt and shorts and pulled out (of course) his NASA t-shirt. Me? What else could I wear but one of my St. Patrick's Day t-shirts (I ended up getting like four this year). I thought about my Kerry jersey but I've lost a lot of weight and I'm proud of that. :-) And jeans. I'm always in jeans. Anyway, here are a few of the results. I can't wait to see the rest. I love them all but my favorite is the last one.






A huge thank you to Jake McKee of Jake McKee Photography for these and everything else!!! Getting up and to us by 8am on a Sunday wasn't easy. Then carrying the bench and trying to be stealthy while we used a cow pasture/oil field that had a ton of signs up about no trespassing. (They're the ones who left the gate open.) Plus, of course, dealing with the harsh sun and everything else that morning. Thank you sooooooooooo much!!!