Do You Love or Dread Family Portraits?

Tyrades! by Danny Tyree

My family took the easy way out - again.

We had our annual chance at a professional portrait and decided to let (insist) son Gideon pose solo for the umpteenth time.

Oh, we’ve had three-person portraits before and every once in a great while, I get an updated “mug shot” for this column (amazing how editors can crop out the spear and the wooly mammoth!), but this year we wound up pinning all our hopes on Gideon once more.

My wife and I always pledge to do better next time, but we have an unfortunate Ko(dak)-dependency thing going on.

Let’s face it: curing the common cold is only slightly more difficult than getting three or more people all available, all photogenic, all well-dressed, all tanned and rested, all cooperative at the same time.

There’s a reason “Synchronized Looking Halfway Decent” can’t field enough contestants to be an official Olympic event.

Aristotle claimed nature abhors a vacuum. Well, it’s not exactly fond of letting people create a treasured memory, either.

Mention an appointment for a sitting and Murphy’s Law goes into overdrive, producing a spontaneous eruption of mandatory overtime, hot flashes, nasal torrents, migraines, bloating, ineffective toothpicks, zits, nervous tics, suicidal ice cream cones, tattletale whining, strands of hair seemingly controlled by an Indian snake charmer, blinking eyes that are evidently trying to send a coded message revealing the plans for D-Day, grandparents whispering “DO YOU THINK WE’RE SUPPOSED TO TIP THIS FOREIGN-LOOKING PHOTOGRAPHER?,” etcetera.

Mankind is fortunate to have individuals who can counteract all this and produce stunning heirlooms. As someone should have said, “When God got bored with making order out of chaos, he turned the job over to professional photographers.”

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