Last night I did a multiple family trade shoot with a bunch of other photographer friends of mine. It was certainly chaotic and long for the kiddos but also something that we moms, as Professional Photographers, deeply value and appreciate because we are NEVER EVER EVER in the pictures of our family's story. As the ones who document everything, we are the invisible presence. So yesterday, while two of the other families were tied up photographing each other, I had ten minutes alone with my kids, who had already been so patiently waiting for their turn, so I decided what better opportunity than for me to take some quickie shots of my own spawn - with my REAL camera rather than my iphone. Yes, it's like the cobbler's kids has no shoes syndrome. I spend my life nowadays making quality art and capturing incredible moments and memories for my clients with my high end gear and yet only have a ton of iphone snapshots of my own kids for the past few years since becoming a single working mom with no time for shoots with my kids... HA! Early in my career as a photographer I used to make the time to professionally photograph my children quite frequently. Now, I hardly ever bust out all my gear on my day off. It's a little tragic, actually. But, I do have a billion of those iphone pics so it's not like they aren't being documented.... Regardless, I thoroughly enjoyed taking these "official" images of my children for that short ten minutes and ended up keeping almost every image I took because they were all so fabulous. Turns out my kids, after years of being photographed by me have picked up on the fine art of posing themselves with very little direction from me. I picked the spot with the best light, set up my reflector, told them to stand there and they took it from there. I'm so lucky that these two kids - despite lots of sibling bickering - actually do love each other TREMENDOUSLY and are very tender and sweet with each other when it counts and matters most. I love these two so very much I can't even begin to express how much. There are simply no adequate words.