The Pursuit of the Perfect Portrait

For some reason, Hannah has developed a great dislike for having her photo taken. For an avid scrapbooker, amateur photographer and sentimentalist, this is my worst nightmare. I don't know why she should hate it so much; maybe its because her normally sensible mother is transformed into a jumping, squealing, hollering, tongue-poking circus freak in an attempt to make her daughter smile or perhaps it is because she is given frantic orders to look at nonsensical objects such as 'Smile for mummy, darling! Oh look! An elephant! Hannah! Look at the flying elephant...'

And of course who wouldn't expect a trusting two year old to light up with glee for a perfect kodak image at the thought of 2 tonnes of saggy grey flesh soaring around our lounge room? Experience has taught her that if she actually does fall for the exaggerated story and respond with delighted anticipation, she recieves nothing more than a blinding flash followed by another urgent request to 'Keep looking, Hanny! Where has he gone? Where's the elephant??'

Is it any wonder, that at a mere two years young, our little girl is over the whole camera thing? the novelty of seeing herself reflected on a 2" LCD is just not worth the trade of 10 minutes worth of a demented, papparazzi mumma. Sigh.

So, photos like these are worth their weight in gold (courtesy of the lovely Helen)

However, future efforts will require the patience and skill of a master tradesman as Hannah grows more and more cynnical and despondant as I whip out my not-so-trusty camera. But they do however happen from time to time, and when they do, they are completely cherished and I am temporarily satisfied by the belief that this is how my family looks all the time.

For every photo like the above, there are at least a dozen that look like this

or perhaps this

I think we can all relate to the above. Surely, the stunning blog portraits and face book albums are just split second fragments of perfection miraculously grasped in between moments of insanity... surely... it can't just be me, can it...??? Any takers?

I think I am going to begin to celebrate the madness... After all, we don't always look like we stepped out of a myer catalogue, much as I would like to. So watch out, peoples, my next blurb album may be filled with shots like this

and I just might update my profile pic with this stunner!

Until next time, say Cheese for me, ok? xoxox