Thursday, October 24, 2013

A project YEARS in the making

When Spencer was exactly 21 months old (June 6, 2009) I took him to a local photographer for a little mini photo session.  She was doing Father's Day stuff and I was instructed to bring Michael's clothes as props.  We went to her house, she took about 8,560 pictures in about 15 minutes and a few days later I got a CD with the 30 best ones. 
 
I framed 3 of those pictures and gave them to Michael for Father's Day that year.  I also made little photo albums of all the pictures for Michael and the grandfathers.
 
You can read the original post I did about the pictures in 2009 HERE.
 
We still have that frame with the 3 pictures.  It sits on a shelf in the entertainment center in the living room.  I work out in the living room so I end up looking at that frame a lot....mostly while I curse Bob Harper and Jillian Michaels.
 
A few months ago it occured to me that Elliott was getting dangerously close in age to what Spencer had been in the pictures.  And I started hatching a plan.  Wouldn't it be so much fun to recreate the photos, frame them and put the frames by each other?  It would just be oodles of fun I said to myself.  Nothing could go wrong with the plan. 
 
Oh, except Elliott would probably rather have his blood drawn than have his picture taken professionally.  Knowing that it would be worthless to go to a photo studio I borrowed Megan's good camera and set up a white backdrop in the living room.
 
And Michael and I tried.  And tried.  And tried.  And tried, about 15 times to get these pictures taken.  And it was a disaster.  Every time.  We're talking tears, screaming, tantums, running away, disaster.
 
We started trying when Elliott was 21 months and 5 days old.  I figured that was pretty darn close to the two of them being the exact same age.  We were just about to give up when we decided to give it 1 more try with grandparents present.  And it worked.
 
Finally, when Elliott was 22 months and 4 days old we got our pictures.  They are not identical remakes and the quality of my photos is nowhere near as good as the photographers, but they are pretty awesome comparisons.
 
 
The 3 original Spencer pictures:
 
 
 
The new Elliott pictures: 


Oh, and how awesome is this?  I bought the original frame at Walmart in 2009.  We went there to buy some Halloween stuff tonight and Walmart still sells the exact same frame.  It was meant to be! 

 
Side by side of the frames 
 
Top and bottom of the frames (I really have problems)
 
Side by sides of my beautiful boys 
 

 
The frames in the entertainment center 
Whew! 
 
I'm so glad that project is done.  It was tense.

5 comments:

Sherry said...

Yay! I applaud you for giving it the DIY effort. You know I am a big photog DIYer. And I actually think your photos turned out just as good as the professional ones. I really love how Elliott's spunk shows with his hat on backwards or that big laugh face. He just begs the world to laugh with him and shows he does not want to conform to be like anyone else. He's an original! :-)

Maryellen said...

Awesome job!! I think it was well worth your effort.

Shireen Wahid said...

I absolutely love this! so glad you did them! they turned out awesome!

Jeannette said...

Good work, Mama! You've received my OCD seal of approval.

Cat said...

When you find the time for these things? I am impressed!