To be upset over ruined photo shoot?

Unfair. I don’t do social media photo posting or photo shoots, but sometimes I just want a nice family photo with everybody looking at the camera and smiling. That’s not too much to ask occasionally!

God, Mumsnet sometimes. There's nothing weird or wrong with wanting some photos of your family taken by a professional photographer.

I feel your pain, OP. There's a reason why someone (Orson Welles? W C Fields?) said never to work with animals or children. I have a load of photos of my normally very sunny DD looking like absolute thunder behind a cake that I sweated blood into the night to produce and which looked and tasted awesome and I was quite upset about it at the time. She even looked annoyed with the cake as she was cramming it into her tiny face with her tiny hands (she was a toddler). However, I love those photos now.

In short, I bet they're not as bad as you think they are, OP. And if they are, you'll still come to enjoy them. But it's hard when you think an experience is going to be lovely and you just cannot get your children to play ball.

You have got photos from today, realistic ones. What you wanted was fake insta ready ones.

I thought you were going to say you were a single parent until you mentioned a DH. Honestly you need to tell him to step up with the photo taking. How old are your children? I’ve been able to take some lovely selfies with mine from around age 2 ish (I’m a line parent) it’s hit or miss and I delete more than I keep but they are far better than any professional photo shoot - I know that’s not what you want to hear but chalk this one up to experience OP. The pressure to get a good photo in a formal setting is going to cause untold stress - tell your DH every time you go out you want photos with the kids and be clear you want nice ones or you’ll have him re take them

I'm pretty sure that is what many of us would get! My kids would somehow get covered in mud even it is was an indoor shoot.

Selfi stick or tripod etc?

Once you get the pictures tell chat to edit them to be what you want to see. You can do anything with AI these days. Just delete the where she gives people etc arms etc.

Totally feel you on this one OP! I also have no nice pictures of me with the kids as DH is rubbish at taking them so have tried a couple of times to get professional pictures taken but it was basically a disaster both times as kids were grumpy, not cooperating etc. ironically the only good ones the photographer got were of my husband and one of the kids 😠

Well that’s lovely for you and all your exceptionally well behaved angel children. As this thread shows getting toddlers to cooperate and sit still and pose and smile on demand is difficult and often a complete write off.
Sometimes you get them to do what you want, often, you don’t!

Just going to offer possibly a helpful tip (my DH does try to take photos but they’re usually not great although I appreciate he tries!) but you could always head outdoors/ to the beach or wherever and prop your phone somewhere and just set it to record. Then take stills from the video. Play with the kids, or cuddle them and walk holding hands etc. Videos are usually good enough on phones now that they look absolutely fine when screenshotted into photos. They won’t be as awkward or hard work as trying to get everyone looking and smiling. I gave up trying to get photos of multiple family children years ago but videos aren’t as much pressure waiting for a split second and you’d be surprised how many options you get.

I think you've taken a pretty unfair bashing from some posters tbh.
It's fine to be upset and feel raw when something you really wanted didn't work out.
I really hope you have a great day tomorrow x

I always grump that if I went missing no-one would have a photo of me to use for the news.

Not sure who these posed photos were for, but as a Nan, I’d sooner have a happy spontaneous photo.

I agree with this.

I suspect you still have a lot of unresolved trauma associated with the loss of your mum when you were so young. You might want to talk this through with a counsellor.

Oh I feel your pain. My youngest was 6 when I tried this, and a stubborn madam then (she isn’t now at almost 18). I was so ashamed. I got no photos of me and my 3 kids, none with me and my boys, and one of me and horror child! It actually turned out ok, but I was so sad as I never did get round to doing another shoot. Like you, I had few with me and my kids.

OP does your husband take pictures of you and the kids?

No, I'm not asking to upset you. I'm genuinely curious because my eldest's dad NEVER did. Eldest is in his 20s now, I have one photo of us all as a family and I look awful in it (and it also cost me!) and less than half a dozen of me and DS1 aged 0-5.

It's rubbish!

When we split I made a huge point of asking random strangers to take photos of me and DS1 on days out and holidays, and even bought a tripod so I could set up some photos of us myself too.

On the other hand ds2's dad took thousands of photos of me with our child and I could have laughed off a failed photo shoot at that point in my life because it wouldn't have felt so huge.

I hope you're okay. It's okay to feel disappointed. 💐 I hope you can come up with a way going forwards where you can have more pictures of you with your kiddies.

Yes this!! My DH is utter crap at taking any pictures of me with the kids. So I maybe have a few awkward selfies but it's not the same!

I'm sure they'll come out a lot better than you think they will OP, but YANBU to be a bit put out! I bet it wasn't cheap either!

When I saw your responses to some of the posts @iamjustgutted . I assumed you were a widow or a single mother with noone to take photos and therefore excused your somewhat snippy replies. Now I see you have a DH so you do have someone to take photos. Now I just think you are rude and a drama queen.

I’m a single parent so I don’t have many people taking photos of me and my child either. I take them myself. We have so many laughing grinning selfies of us. And each of them is a moment of our lives I remember, rather than a staged photoshoot, where even if you get a good photo you’re now always going to have a bad memory of.

You don’t spend day to day moments with your kids?

Your responses are quite telling OP. You're basically having a tantrum.

What?
my mother did three or so between my ages 1-6. One of which with all seven grandchildren!
everyone behaved, even the babies.

My parents spent a small fortune on a series of family photos taken in a professional photographer's studio.

My brother (then aged about 3) was a freaking nightmare, he didn't want to be there & played up throughout the whole session. Having seen the proofs, my parents didn't order any prints. However, about 40 years later, my mother came across the proofs & thought 'actually they weren't so bad after-all, why didn't we buy any prints?' You may feel the same after the passage of time.

However, like PP I agree, best to take lots of informal pictures. My mother became a very good photographer (she did a course) & was always behind her Nikon or Canon cameras at family events. However the best pictures taken of our family were taken by my DCs on instamatic cameras as people behave in a natural manner when a small child points a camera at them.