My Kids {Pretty sure I have the photographer's curse}

In sports they call it the coach's curse when a coach of a male dominated sport has daughters that can't play his sports... well, I've decided to call my predicament the photographer's curse! It's not that my kids aren't photogenic, they just don't like me taking photos of them... and it's not even that I'm following them around with a camera every day, I only whip out my "big" camera (as my kids call it) for special occasions! Regardless of that fact, my kids still don't like to look at me when I have my camera, so as you'll see I was pretty hard pressed to get a shot of my girls... and in the end, I bribed Audrey to let me take her picture (she got to ride home with Uncle Doug & soon-to-be Aunt Brit)! Luckily for me, most of what I do as a photographer is just document moments, and I try not to overpose people! So, when I look at it that way, my kids took some amazing photos, because they had lots of fun! But just to show you, what it can sometimes be like, here is Audrey & Kate in a, well, painful moment...


When we plan out a photo shoot during March, we never know what we are going to get... the weather can be so unpredictable, and kids are even more unpredictable then the weather! So we made it out to our favorite hiking trails in Irvine, let the kids out of the car, and led them to the trail... At first, my nephew Andrew made a mad dash & got pretty far ahead, and of course the others followed! Luckily I was wearing my boots (because I pretty much always wear my boots when I'm shooting), so I managed to keep up with them! We also managed to get them all into a line, to get the shot that my mom wanted (her vision for our shoot included the kids walking hand-in-hand on the trails), so after we got that out of the way, we let the kids run & as always, we took leads from them! At one point they all started freaking out because someone (I'm guessing one of my siblings) had told them there were snakes in the grass... now, I must admit, there probably are snakes in the grass, and we have actually seen a really large tarantula out in these hills, but I wasn't planning on actually telling my daughters, because they have a talent for making mountains out of molehills! And if you get them screeching... well, lets just say, your hearing will never be the same! So everytime Kate realized she had walked too close to the grass, she began to say "oh no, snakes!" But even with the fear of snakes, all of the kids had a great time... and I still believe that my nephew Daniel has a career in modeling ahead of him... or he'll just always take really good pictures! So here are some of my favorite moments of the day....


This is the shot that my mom wanted... it'll be hanging on her wall later in the week!

And here is the running...







Here is David (he is 9)!


And here is Daniel (he's 6)!



Here's Audrey (she's mine, and she's 5)...

And yes, these are the aforementioned bribery shots!

And this is Andrew (He'll be 5 on cinco de mayo!)


And lastly, here is Kate (she's mine too... and she 2 this month, but 3 next month!)


Here's just some more fun...


Here are their "serious" faces...









And lastly... here is the only creature that we came across, and he was pretty harmless!


All in all, it was a fun afternoon... and I loved spending the time with my girls & my nephews!
Diana Rush