Pissed off over photos

[ChubbyBoobs456]

DD's first birthday today. No one could be bothered to take a good photo of me. I have a handful of photos, either me talking, or in just a terrible pose, DD crying, DD not looking at camera. Not for lack of effort from my side, I tried but no one had the patience to take a good one. Fuck sake. I made an effort with everyone. Everyone has at least one excellent shot. Not me. It's ruined my night. I'm not normally this self centred but I literally gave birth to this human a year ago. I don't know why it's made me feel so ugly and unappreciated.

I am now refusing to send out photos. And I have deleted the best ones (not best ones of DD, but some excellent ones of other people). If they want photos, they can take it themselves.

In fairness I’ve jsut had cause to go through lots of old pictures and there are very few of me with my DD’s when they were babies. Loads of everyone else as I took them but not many of me (and not one of me pregnant at all) because ex h couldn’t be arsed to take them. And it did make me sad so you have a point op. At least you have some even if they are less than perfect. I don’t think you shod let it ruin your night though. Just ask someone to take a nice one at future events early doors and then it’s done.

I can understand how you feel OP. I didn't have one photo of me and my daughter or me and my husband and our daughter at her first birthday party and actually the only photo I got of her on her birthday was once we were home after her party I believe. It sucks, I was so busy making sure everyone else was okay that I didn't get the photos I wanted but that was my fault. I think there's one of me holding her, she's sitting in my lap, I'm sitting down with her and it's side on. That'll do I said afterwards.

I’ve just checked and I’m not in a single snap from any of DSs parties which is because his parties were about him and his little friends.

Relying to someone who said you wouldn't even know if that they were there with their kids on holiday recently but I think it created a post so this is incase it did and I didn't reply to this person :( Oh I'm so sorry that's awful for you and your kids 😔 id be so upset. Same here with alot of things! Unless I take them myself that is! Selfies 😞

Of course OP isn't trying, in the time-honoured MN putdown, to "make it all about her".

This is about OP constantly taking other people's feelings into account and them not returning the favour. Or god forbid, even celebrating her a bit too, on what's a big deal for her and means precisely zilch to baby birthday girl. But never mind that, just as long as mumzilla doesn't try to hog the limelight by hoping for a decent pic of herself, after a year of sleepless nights and baby rearing.

Why on earth shouldn't she? Don't mothers deserve any special consideration on such an occasion? Is it really the height of selfishness for OP to want one photo of herself that she's happy with? Just how self-erasing do we want mothers to be?

On the other hand OP, I'm sure your guests weren't being deliberately thoughtless. It's just that, unfortunately, people tend to be crap at working these things out for themselves. You not sharing pics will go right over their heads as retribution, and you're gonna find yourself disappointed by their behaviour again and again.

Remember that you're in hyper-mind-reader mode as a mum to 1 year old and other people aren't. Also you might be more sensitive about your new-mum appearance than they realise. So try to cut them some slack.

It's great advice from PPs to make it very clear what you want from a partner, relatives, friends etc. Everyone has different things that really matter to them and there's no shame in saying it out loud. You'll know best how to do it in your own family - my in-laws rip the p* out of each other when it comes to things like photos, and maybe yours is like that - but as a rule I'd avoid anything that could be interpreted as nasty or aggressive.

Either you assert what you want - or you don't, and make peace with the fact you're probably not going to get it. Both approaches are fine. You pick your battles.

The important thing is not to set yourself up for disappointment and resentment. A good life lesson to model to DD.

Thats a bit of an extreme reaction! and now you have no photographic evidence for your babies memory box that anyone came to her first birthday party its a bit selfish on your part , you have kind of cut your nose off to spite your face, you should be grateful people tried to take a pic for you and kept them . Some of us dont have the luxury of that and have to live with selfies or just the fact that we were there just the ones holding the camera , I have some terrible photos of myself that my 5 year old has started taking on my phone but ive kept them as she says you looked beautiful , you need to be grateful for small things and not overreact and ruin the memories that you have , do a little photo shoot get your partner/friend/family member to take some pics of you and baby doing birthday things , our birthdays always last a week and there's loads of opportunities to get some lovely photos and baby wont even know its not her birthday

Honestly I hated all of the photos of me with DD at her birth and in her birthdays.
Now she’s an adult I can look back at them fondly or laugh. Don’t get hung up on it or books nice photo shoot

Yanbu I even make sure if a stranger asks while out and about I take a few to make sure there is at least one good one. I’ll even tell them. I’ll snap a few so you can see what’s best.

I'm having difficulty deciding which one of you is the toddler here. Are you sure it was your 1yr old crying and not you having a tantrum?

Honestly...talk about 1st world problems. Get a grip!

I feel I was bit harsh, which I regret. I don’t really understand because photos just aren’t really important to me, and no amount of posing is ever going to make me look good in a photo so it’s in my interests not to care. I suspect that actually you are a good photographer, hence having managed to take lovely photos of other people. There aren’t any lovely photos of you because other people just aren’t as good at taking photos and catching the right moment as you are.

Of all the photos I have of my eldest child, including all the posed ones from school, we have one that really stands out as a beautiful photo and we had blown up and framed. It was taken by my husband’s uncle who is a keep hobby photographer. It’s not posed, she was playing in my MIL’s garden, and he just caught the perfect shot.

I think you’re likely to find this situation is going to repeat for you as you’re the one who’s good at taking photos. If you have a partner involved you could try training them just to get a decent photo of you, maybe at the beginning of the event before everyone arrives next time.

Chill out. I have never had an issue taking a picture with my 1 yo. Maybe she is feeding off your vibes

Have a 🏅

I'm sorry but for me this is a non event. I'm always the photographer and never the photgraphed and couldn't care less. It's about my kids kit me. Sorry if this sounds callous but I'm in my 50s and so grew up without all this photograph drama. Most of my childhood isn't captured at all. It would never have occurred to me to complain. You've brought up a child for 1 year that's something to celebrate!! Please don't spoil it for yourself. I'm sure you're an amazing mum and your child will know it. That validation is priceless.

Feel better?

It's not modern technology though is it? People hsve always took family pictures since cameras were available. My mum had lots of family albums, im sure most families have.
I saw a quote on fb that said "one day all your children will have is photos of you" and its so true, so yes it is important for mums to have photos with their children even more than others as they are the most important person to them

I went to my nephew’s 1st birthday party today and spent ages trying to get a nice picture of him and his mum.. Impossible, the baby kept moving and didn’t want to pose for pictures. In the end I just left my phone on video mode pointing in the direction of the baby and his mum, managed to screenshot tons of nice pictures from the video.

I don't understand how your belief that your guests, who showed up I assume because they care about your child (and you), not trying hard enough when they took photos equates to not caring about you.
No one goes to an event with the idea that the most important thing is to get that perfect shot of the host whilst you're there. If you get one, great, of course you'd share, but that's never to actual expected outcome of a party. At least I didn't think so, usually on here, it's all about the gifts. 🤷‍♀️
Explicit instructions on the invitation next time to save all of the foot stamping, toddler like reaction. "Please ensure that you do not leave before submitting all photos of myself for inspection. You may be required to retake if enough effort is not made".

Petty tantrum avoided if everyone knows what is expected of them.

Op, good for you for realising you were being pathetically melodramatic. Also, Insta filters can work miracles these days so not everything is lost.

I get it's disappointing, but when you are hosting it's very common to run round like a blue arsed fly and miss photo opportunities or if someone takes your photo you look a bit frazzled (well perhaps that's just me! ) I think you need to spell out to your DP before a big celebration that you would like a nice photo taken and to ensure you're looking at the camera, eyes open tell you if your hairs sticking out, bra strap showing etc.
I'm the one the remembers to take photos and therefore I'm not in most family photos.
DH prefers " natural/unposed shots" but 99% of the time they are terrible, someone has their mouth open, someone has their eyes closed, you can't see people's faces etc.
Get DP to take a lovely photo today.

Yeah and we couldn’t delete the really rubbish ones we had to wait a few days to have them printed and half of them were crap.😂😂😂 At least with digital cameras and phones you can take as many as you want.