My mom’s 60th birthday was last week, so Jon and I packed up the kid and went back east to Indiana.  I might say here, because I would like a nice birthday present for my own birthday, that my mom doesn’t look in the LEAST like she’s SIXTY YEARS OLD.  No way.  And mom, as you read this, click here for birthday ideas.  Thank you.

So here is the Richardson family, in all their glory.

Who took the picture? This random homeless guy on the street .  (I’m joking).

It’s always a bit of a struggle when we take family pictures, and not for the usual reasons of I’m fat, I don’t have anything to wear, I have to work that day, I can’t stand my brother-in-law, etc.. No, our struggle results from one dad, three kids and three spouses that are all highly-trained professional photographers.  With three studios between us, how do we decide who does what?  Let me explain further: it’s not what you’re thinking.  No, instead of someone insisting “I want to take the portrait!” no, my dears, we all chorus, “No! Not me!” Yep.  No one wants to take the picture.  Because it’s hard work.  And we’re all pretty lazy.  Especially my brothers.  (Don’t worry, they don’t read my blog.  They’re too lazy).

Honestly, at one point we did contemplate the homeless guy plan.  But since he probably had a camera nicer than ours parked in his Porsche hidden around the corner, we didn’t want him to make us feel bad.  So we whipped out the remote and tripod, posed ourselves naturally (we do this all the time, you know) and voila! The Richardson family portrait!  So you can say that we all contributed evenly.  Note: I must give credit where credit is due. Jeff (that’s him and his family below) did all the post-production editing and retouching.  Visit him at http://www.richardsonstudio.net

Here we are skipping.  Everyone should try skipping.  Look how excited Jeff is about getting to edit and retouch all of our faces! And getting a link to his site!

And look closely at this one.  See something similar?

Yes, that’s right.  I look like my mother.  When did this happen?

My mother does read my blog, like any good mother.  So I must comment here on how lovely she is.  Seriously, I really do think she’s pretty.  I mean, I look just like her, remember?? (That’s her grandson Will, while granddaughter Andrea and my Jack are in the background).

Here’s my other brother Darrell.  I mean, my other brother, James.  He’s married to Jennifer and so far they’ve managed to positively contribute nothing to the Richardson family grandkid collection. (Like any good family, we remind them of this often).  James and Jennifer manage The Studio Photography in Seymour, Indiana, the original mothership where all of our creative genius originated.  James is the photographer, my Dad (who still owns the place) manages portrait sales and fumes over the balance sheet, Mom pays the bills because the creative right-brainers refuse to do it, and Jennifer does pretty much everything else.  Visit them at http://www.thestudiophoto.com and don’t you dare say James’ photography is better than mine.

Speaking of grandkids, here’s all three of them.  I am personally drawn to the shortest one.

Here’s mom and dad with the grandkids.  They seem to have forgotten that they made US take cod liver oil, and instead give these guys a continuous stream of candy.

Mom and Dad: Awww.

Yes, that’s us! We’re the Stephens division of the Richardsons, and we are one happy family!

A sweet moment… Will, walking with Jack.

So that’s my family.  Aren’t families the best?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 25th, 2010 at 1:05 PM and is filed under Children, Families, the Calotype Poster Child. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.