Different Boys In The Photo

We had dinner at Allison’s last night (Jane’s sister who has adopted me as her own family). I noticed some of the photos of the boys that Jane had gotten done with their little brother Trevor. It made me kind of sad and curious.

We’ve had quite a few family photos done and in all of them (for the most part) the boys are smiling and look happy and sparkly. (By sparkly I mean full of life and not covered in glitter.)

In these photos only Older Boy and Trevor were the ones smiling. Middle Boy and Younger Boy had these miserable, sad looks on their faces. I couldn’t tell if it was boredom, disinterest, true feelings coming through or a mixture of all of the above.

I always have a little chat with the boys before we take our photos where I kindly ask them to smile happily. And then throw in "Please smile pretty for your grandmas' because we're giving them these as a gift." (Which is entirely true in addition to the fact that I'd like a nice family photo of everyone smiling.) Younger Boy was the only one who acted up at our last family photo shoot but the photographer got him to smile for the photos.

I guess I was mainly surprised by a few things:

1) by their expressions. I've been in my new instant mom lifestyle for almost 3 years now. I’ve seen the three photo outcomes of the photoshoots that Jane has had done. In the first year after Trevor was just born (and after the divorce) it was Middle Boy who had a forced smile on his face. Older Boy and Younger Boy both had decent smiles on. But the last two years are the ones where Middle Boy and Younger Boy look miserable and unhappy.

2) the fact that these are the outcomes she’s getting for photos. They just look so completely different from the photo outcomes that we have gotten. I personally would not pay for a photo like that, not would I be happy if that was the best of the photos.

I consider that there are many different opportunities at play here:

Perhaps I just happen to schedule good photographers who care about the result of their photos and know how to make children smile.

Perhaps my kindly asking them to smile happily before hand makes a difference.

Perhaps the difference in our family photos just shows a reflection of the differences in our two homes.

Perhaps to Jane it doesn’t really matter and it’s more of a formality then a family keepsake.

There’s plenty more but I just was completely confuddled at the complete turn around in the comparison of the two photos. The most recent photos we had were just a day apart too. Jane had the boys take photos the day before we were taking our family photos. It’s just striking to me how different the boys look … even the smiling Older Boy lacks some of the glowing luster that he has in our family photo.

Or maybe it’s just the lighting of the studio and the fact that I put thought into the colors and clothes that the boys are wearing and Jane doesn't.