The Great Retake

I was so inspired by that unusual photo of Jake that I posted on Tuesday that I immediately lobbied for another trip to the park that we took the photo at. The grandchildren are always ready to go to the park and Opa, the photographer, was a good sport, too.

We went earlier this week and we had a fantastic photo shoot! That is pretty incredible given that we were working with three toddlers. They were very cooperative almost the entire time. It was amazing.

We started off with some shots on a park bench. Here's our favorite one.


Then we moved to a nearby picnic table. We had a hard time choosing our favorite shot taken here, so we picked three.




Finally we started hiking down the trail. We found a log for the grandchildren to sit on.




I didn't like the background behind that particular log, so I moved the trio to a log behind the first log.




Farther down the trail we ran across a set of three tree stumps. This should have been a great location. The toddlers all sat nicely on their assigned stumps, but as we started shooting photos a yellow Labrador retriever came down the path. *sigh* The photographer could not draw the children's attention back to him.



Fortunately there were many other opportunities to take great shots. We found another tree stump, a rather large one. I attempted to pose all three children on it, but it was a precarious perch for Jake and so we abandoned that idea after only a few shots. None of them were great.


Instead we had Jake and Viva sit on the stump. That worked rather well.



I believe (comparing photos after we got back home) that this was the stump that Jake stood on when he had The Really Bad Photo taken back in May. The location is prettier now because the forest floor around the stump has filled in with more greenery, but the background trees look similar.

We decided to give the toddlers a break from the photo session because they had been so great to work with. We headed straight on to the playground where they had a fun time on the swings and slides. After playing for a while, we headed back.

We stopped at the stream to pose the little ones for a set of beautiful photos that can be arranged in a triptych frame.




We stopped at a nearby park bench.


We then spent some time trying to get a good photo of the toddlers running down the forest path, but they were too quick for us. Mark could not easily keep ahead of them. They refused to hold hands. We had a couple of mishaps when one toddler ran into the back of another.


We'll have to try this type of photo again another day. We found yet another tree stump and we attempted to redo the aforementioned lousy (but humorous) photo of Jake.

We redid the photo all right--we got another funny photo. That was NOT my goal. I think the problem might be that Jake feels a little unsteady on the stump, so he slumps forward to stabilize his balance which gives him really lousy posture (and a shortened waist!) which results in a ridiculous photo.


Viva refuses to stand on stumps. However, she loves to sit on them and we got a wonderful series of photos of Viva on stumps.





We definitely got some great photos, but...there is always room for more photos. I've got a new idea for a photo op. I want to take the children (and the photographer!) down to town square and get some photos amid the incredible flower beds. (By amid I mean next to not actually standing in the beds!)