Portrait Photography | Portraits of My Family

My sister got married a few weeks back.  I was particularly excited about this.  Aside from the obvious fact that my sister was getting married (congrats to Ash and Michael), a whole slew of family members were flying to the Houston area for the celebration.

This was good for a number of reasons.  For one, I love getting to see my family.  It is something that does not happen enough.  For another, it means that good food is probably going to be present.  But most importantly, family has a hard time saying no.

You see, prior to the wedding, I had concocted the evil plan to set up a mini studio and persuade (force) each family member to spend a few minutes acting goofy in front of the camera.  All of the family was scheduled to come over to my parents house the day after wedding for dinner, so I found a space upstairs and built a portrait studio on location.

When I announced to the group that I would be coming around and stealing them away for individual portraits, I could see the fear and unease in their eyes.  Every ounce of their being seemed to scream “We weren’t told about this! If I had known…..” But, we are family; and family has a hard time saying no.

So one by one, we headed upstairs.  The next step of the plan was to have them look angry, clap their hands and scream.  While this did create some memorable family portraits, it more importantly brought their real essence out; you can’t help but be genuine when you just got done screaming at the camera.

So I took everyone’s photograph.  I had a good time doing it, and I think most everyone else did too… or at least they lied to my very convincingly.  I came away with a slew of good images and since it was impossible to choose just one image for each person, I chose six instead.  To see all of the rest of the images, click the link at the bottom of the post.

This is not however, a full set of my family.  My sister and my new brother-in-law are absent, for good reason (honeymoon).  A few cousins could not get away from work and we all missed them.  Others had to head back home early after the wedding.  Some family members have passed on and could only be present in spirit; they are sorely missed.

For all you Family reading this, thanks for being my family.  Simple as that.  Thanks.

Check out all the family portraits here.

You will be glad you did.