Why We Don’t Get Professional Family Photos

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This is honestly one of the best photos we have of our baby.

Ben and I have established a game plan for when I get tempted to have professional family photos taken.

You know the ones I’m talking about. They’re all over Facebook. The ones where the family is holding hands and frolicking through apple orchards in full bloom, or at the lakeside, or in a forest bursting with autumnal majesty. The babies’ faces look like porcelain and their eyes shine like glass as they look up from antique chairs sitting in the middle of grassy meadows or from wicker baskets filled with quilts. Moms and dads in cable-knit sweaters gaze at each other with laughing eyes while the sun glows in their hair. Everyone is radiant and smiling.

Perhaps your family has pictures like these.

We don’t.

Not because I don’t want them. Goodness, who doesn’t want to dress up in their nicest clothes and have a professional snap photos of them prancing around in some idyllic wood or meadow, and then have them edited to empyrean perfection? Who doesn’t want photos of their babies looking like little forest nymphs and their husbands looking like Urban Outfitters models? Let me tell you: I do!

The very reason I’ve gone over a game plan with Ben about this is because the allure is so strong. I want to see myself looking like a Mother Goddess in all her ethereal glory, dang it! I don’t for one second blame anyone who’s gotten them done. I’ve been thisclose on more than one occasion.

So when I’m overcome with the desire to immortalize my family in these gorgeous picture collections, I have my husband go over these reasons for refraining with me.

1. Cost. This is our primary reason for not getting them done. I know that photos today are cheaper than ever, now that they’ve gone digital, and now that almost anyone with a DSLR can become a photographer with a single class at the community college and a pirated copy of Photoshop.* I know it’s not a huge expense. But since I don’t intend to ever work full-time again, extra money is not something we’re likely to see, um, ever again. And professional family portraits aren’t high on the priority list due to the following reasons.

2. Ben and I have decided that for us, the purpose of photos is to preserve memories. So a photo shoot of us hanging out in our Sunday best in a verdant field wouldn’t make sense, because we don’t do that. My baby doesn’t sleep on an ottoman under a willow tree with an oversized flower in her hair. She sleeps in a playpen in the kitchen, wearing mismatched leg warmers and homemade flannel bibs.

So we try to take pictures of the things and people in our daily lives, as well as our vacations. My photo albums are filled with pictures of me cooking, of our dog begging at the table, of our baby learning to hold her head up from the computer desk where she formerly slept, of Ben building things in the back yard. They’re grainy and poorly composed and our hair is always messy, but they’re true to life.

3. I’m uncomfortable with the artificiality of photos that are staged and edited but passed off as realistic portraits. Their ostensible purpose is to “capture memories,” to show what we look like. But I’ve seen photos of close friends where I wouldn’t have even recognized them if I hadn’t been told who was in them. And the times I’ve been in other people’s professional wedding photos? You would never guess that I have problem skin and chronically limp hair. I look amazing.

I understand that photography is an art, and all art lies; but portraits are expected to represent reality. It strikes me as somewhat dishonest when we pass these off as realistic. It’s like reality TV: they allegedly portray real people in real situations, when in truth these people have been hand-picked based on various criteria (looks, charisma) and put into artificial scenarios for our entertainment. They give a false impression of reality.

4. I’m somewhat uncomfortable with the objectification of children. Babies are dressed up and put into unnatural poses and placed in unrealistic situations for the sole purpose of being looked at. They become pieces of art in these photos. Not that this is necessarily wrong or anything; I’m just uncomfortable with how this further removes children from the realm of real life and relationships.

Now, in case I’ve said anything offensive, let me just clarify a few things:

• I realize that my own photos don’t tell the whole truth, either, because I delete any pictures in which I look ugly. Which are many.

• I regularly feel ashamed of my lousy photos, and a little guilty for not spending money into getting Lydia a proper photo shoot. Almost every parent I know has a nice collection of newborn photos, with fresh little babies lying naked on cozy crocheted blankets. I feel like a cheapskate sometimes, unwilling to give Lydia that gift.

• It’s actually one of my life goals to take a photography class at the community college and get a decent camera so I can take nice family photos myself. So I’m not against nicely-composed photos or anything.

• I can’t guarantee I will never have a professional outdoor photo shoot. They’re just so darn beautiful. And if someone offered to do it for free? There’s no way I could say no.

*I am not knocking photographers just because they’re becoming so common. It still takes talent to be a good photographer. Besides, absolutely anyone with internet access can become a blogger. I have no claim to originality. There are probably more of us than any other type of aspiring artist.

Have you gotten these outdoor family portraits? What were your reasons? Or if you’re refraining, what are your reasons?