Informal Family Portraits

For what seems to have been the longest while, Natalia has been intent of finding a professional photographer to take family pictures. Formal pictures were out of the question...Laurence would have none of that dressing up stuff. So, as time passed and Natalia realized that the longer we wait the less the chances of having both our daughters in that 'young and cute' phase, she took it upon herself to work things out.

The photographer, Nikki, came just before 9:00am on Sunday morning. A few minutes earlier , Irini had begun her battle against being told what to do. No, she wouldn't wear a white shirt. No, she didn't like the idea of photos at all. When the photographer came she was cautious at best, and though Amalia was happy as can be to be the center of attention, Irini sat in the background being somewhat difficult. Tears flowed freely at times. Then the doorbell rang. Scott and Rebecca had arrived! Rebecca being particularly enthusiastic took over and allowed us a few glimpses of smiles from Irini. Between being told to move this way and that (so Irini's face would face the light) and trying to keep Irini interested and happy, it was an interestingly fun experience.

The shoot moved downstairs with intermittent sections of "no, no, no" with thumb in mouth (a relatively new development we are not happy to see) so you don't take a picture of me, and other times when Irini was happy to oblige.

In the end we had a set of photos that were good enough, although Irini's photos were lacking. No matter. We said goodbye and waited for the arrival of the digital prints, which happened today. The photos were a delightful mix of beautiful faces and family smiles. What isn't shown is that, especially for the group photos, between each group photo there was a falling back of Laurence - while holding Irini - and then a return to the sitting position, the movement of which supplied enough of a comical relief to get a shot or two of. Then came the nuclear family photo of the four of us. If you notice, Natalia and Laurence are smiling at the camera while the girls are looking somewhere to the right (their left). What could it be? It was Rebecca and Scott, of course, doing their version of some dance concoction - a combination of rock meets merengue. It turns out that Scott has some pretty impressive moves after all.

We tried hard to find things to keep Irini's mind off of the shoot.... "oh, there's a snail over there!", "let's put our feet in the pool and see how fun it is!", and here and there Irini would put up with our antics. But when Amalia decided that it was nap time, her early tears were followed quickly by an immediate packing and scuffling upstairs.

Enjoy the photos, and just try your best to imagine all the in-betweens. :-)