SIL perfect pictures

[Hayheyhayhey]

My SIL has taken some of the most perfect, aesthetically pleasing photos of her under 6 month old. From newborn to now. They are currently on holiday, think, back of the head crawling in the sand toward horizon shot.
I feel so much less of a parent looking at her photos. They have beautiful black and white hand holding ones. Horizon shots in the sand. Matching Christmas pyjamas etc etc

I dont have nay photographs that match the class of hers. But I loves my kids so much.
Have I failed them by not taking the Instagram worthy shots?
I feel like a total failure.
For the record I have 3, 6 and under and I feel I should have done better like my sil

Are your children fed, clothed, housed, warm, loved, played with and educated? You’re doing great as a parent then.

We don’t measure good parenting by photography skills, thank goodness!

OP, my SIL has been similar. Kids in perfect poses wearing matching outfits on her holiday pics. And my pictures - kids with uncombed hair and wearing whatever we happened to find that day. And not posing with perfect little smiley faces. But guess what, I actually feel my pics are more genuine and more of real life than hers. I prefer it that way 100%.

You're not a bad parent because you don't take professional-quality photos. But if you want better photos, you can learn to take better photos. Your phone probably has a lot of settings that would make your photos better, you just need to learn to use them.

Yes, you've clearly completely failed your children. Maybe reach out to SIL to ask for guidance?

Just get down on the floor with your subject matter.

I’m not sure I’ve ever taken a decent photo of the children, we all still like each other

Wow, since when did spending time getting the perfect shot make you a perfect parent?.

I must have missed that memo.

I don't believe that this 5 month old can crawl...

Social Media has really fucked us up hasn't it.

I grew up in the 1970s and there are very few photos of me as a kid as my parents didn't have a camera. It had no bearing on my happy, stable childhood.

😂me too

Ask her to take some photos for you ! She would probably be flattered.
Some parents spend a fortune on professional photos. Some people are just better photographers.
Stop over thinking it, it doesn’t make you a better parent!

Might be crawling with something though....😁So daft to compare yourself with her.

Hey OP - I'm a photographer (more hobby than work) and I have stunning photos up of a lot of different people - from my kids and OH to our pets.

I can promise you that real life is not like that. There's clutter, fighting siblings, attempt number 382, a stain down a dress, I could go on.

I don't have any of these kind of photos of our eldest two as newborns as I wasn't as good at photography back then, and either used my phone or a disposable camera.

But it's never too late if it's something you genuinely want to do.
Etsy sell some really good photo props and backdrops. If you have it, always use portrait mode on your phone's camera if that's what you have. You can download editing apps for free to change the brightness and smoothness etc.

But you are not in any way, less of a mother and you honestly haven't failed at all. Never once will your children go "Well my Mum wasn't great because she didn't take insta-worthy shots of me in a basket with a flower petal background as a slept peacefully." I promise.

“Mum, where are the semi-professional ‘milestone’ photos of me you stage-managed for your social media feed?”

Said no teenager ever.

Seriously, OP, is this what you really believe constitutes aspirational parenting? Expending time and energy artificially posing your children for Insta-worthy pictures? That are then posted online, thus creating an indelible, lifelong digital footprint before those kids can even walk, let alone consent to it?

This is about as far from anything a child wants or needs as it’s possible to get. Stick with your family snaps and have a word with yourself.

Do you know, some people don't even HAVE Instagram, and their kids are great as well. I think if you're so insta-addled that you can't even think rationally about other people's social media, that you probably need to come right off the apps.

It probably took her 5,000 shots and hours of time, remember you are seeing the perfect ones, not the time and effort that it took!

Is your sil Michelle whatsherbuns, married to that fella from Towie?

It’s concerning that you are raising three children as an emotionally immature adult.

By ‘Instagram worthy’ i’m presuming you just mean nice photos as you then go
on to say you could put them on the wall?
Some people have a natural eye for this sort of stuff. I don’t but still have photos of my kids up that I’ve taken. No faffing about with staging or lighting or tinkering with the effects or whatever, just point shoot print frame.

Taking great photos is a bit of a hobby. You need to think about it then practice...btw I'm sure your amateur style photos are lovely 🌹

This was us but with 3. A full big album plus extras of child one. About half an album of child 2 and about 10 pictures of number 3.
Ds3 did ask why there weren't as many pictures of him i just said the photos were expensive to develop and I was too busy looking after them.

Time to book a family photography session then
Or go on holiday or days out with SIL and ask her to take some candids of you and the kids
Go through your phone and sort nice pix into a folder - then download free prints app and get them all printed into a nice album. It will look much nicer and you could even write something on the back of pix
V good for the kids to flick through

Oh, it was a real.post then.

Your children are still young, if it really matters to you start taking arty pictures now.
It's just not a big deal in the scheme of things though is it?

Have a word with yourself. The most important thing is to spend time with your kids, not whether you have taken great pictures of them.
Spend time with them, love them, enjoy them, prioritise them, care for them, teach them.
Those are the important things & the things they will remember.

And whatever great pics she takes now they will still probably look dated & naff by the time her kids are grown up anyway.

I kind of understand what you are getting at, I don’t take half as many photos as my friends do and I don’t really have a knack for it. I don’t really use social media so I never got into it and now I feel too behind. I just make myself feel better thinking how few photos we had from childhood! I would like to get better at grouping photos into albums/ making photo books each year or something though.

What I really would like to do is get good at making short videos- like on a birthday when people put clips together and somehow make it flow beautifully.