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Referencing yesterday’s post, I thought I would tell my readers about our last family portrait as a big group. Often times birth parents feel that they need to wait for the adoptive family to suggest such an endeavor. In this particular instance, I took the driver’s seat. It made sense as they were coming to visit our home, instead of vice versa. Planning the ordeal caused some anxiety and so I thought I would share some of my experience so others might benefit from my knowledge (and mistakes!).
First and foremost, I’m usually aware of how D feels on a subject. I knew that broaching the subject of a family portrait during the visit would not be met with disdain, shock or horror. As I suspected, she was immediately excited about the idea and we started talking about clothing choices.
My second hurdle to jump over was the photographer. Nicholas and I had tried out a local one the month prior and were greatly impressed. Slightly pricey but oh, so worth it when you look at the final products. When Nick and I had our Mommy & Me pictures taken, we were treated like royalty, with kindness, with respect, even though he kept trying to crawl away from both photographers. I knew that they would be skilled, technically, to take our pictures (three kids, one picture requires high technical expertise) but I needed to feel that they could capture the emotional aspect of what we were as a family.
And so I bit the big bullet.
In the second e-mail to the two photographers (we were setting up dates and clothing and ideas), I told them the true nature of our family. When I initially discussed the portrait with them, I just said “family.” When I sent the first e-mail, I named all the members but didn’t state how we were related. In that second e-mail, I explained how we were related. I said that the Munchkin was my daughter, placed in a fully open adoption at birth with D, the other Mom in the picture. I explained the brother situation and how the Munchkin does consider Nicholas a brother. I hinted at a few things that we wanted. I stated that I wanted to try and capture some of those bonds, not always an easy task with kids, and that I thought they were best equipped for the task at hand. And then I pressed, gulp, send.
Waiting for a reply was torturous. Quite frankly, I was nervous as heck. One photographer was someone who I was hoping would end up being a friend as she lived in my city, was my age and also was a Mom of a gorgeous boy. And there I was, laying it all out on the line. I checked my e-mail like a mad-woman.
The reply was kind and generous. They stated that they thought our relationship was amazing and were excited to do the photo shoot. So, anxiety over, right? Come on, this is me!
On picture day, we dressed in our various shades of black sweaters, red sweaters, black shirts, red shirts, shiny shoes, red socks, jeans and smiles. We met the photographers at an outside location, changed at the last minute because of previous rain. And they got to snapping. Wrangling three kids into a picture is difficult but things were going well.
Then the one photographer referred to me as Mom, of Munchkin, as well while she was positioning us for a shot. I didn’t even know for certain if D had heard the exchange, so I didn’t acknowledge it. (This was actually the visit that Munchkin herself referred to me as her “Mommy” as well, prior to this day, so I was just continuously thrown for a loop during this visit.) Thankfully, it didn’t show much on my face (or, at least, in the photos we viewed afterwards.) And then pictures were over.
A day or so later, my phone rang. The photographer who referred to me as Mom was calling to apologize in case she stepped on any toes. It had kept her up at night. She was afraid that she had offended D, who didn’t know her from Eve to know she was a good person. She was afraid she had upset me. She was afraid of any confusion caused for the Munchkin. I reassured her that everything was fine, thanked her for even acknowledging the issue and reassured her that the work was fabulous and we would be using them for future portrait sessions with the family. D also agreed that it wasn’t a big deal.
And so my final tip in getting ready for such a big portrait session is this: if you’ve explained the nature of your family, to avoid being caught off guard or creating a problem, please inform the photographer of your own appropriate titles. (We all know that we have different ways we refer to one another in our families. Let them know your own personal desires on who is to be called “Mom,” “Dad,” “Jenna,” “Crazy.” You get what I mean.)
In all, I love looking at the portraits on our wall. The kids don’t even really look like that anymore, Nicholas and JD having just turned one year in the pictures. The Munchkin’s hair has grown. D’s hair is a different color and mine is outrageously shorter. (And, ya know, I have this big basketball in my belly right now.) We may do another session this year if they get to come out for Nick’s birthday party. (However, I’ll be eight and a half months pregnant by that point so I don’t know how “up to” smiling I will feel!)
As for hanging these pictures on our wall, well, it finally wasn’t an issue for me by the time we reached this point. I felt no need to hide who I was in my own (owned!) home. I wanted to show off my family. I wanted to be proud of who I was, who they were and who we all were together. Also, as I said before, they were a smidgen pricey so it’s not like I was going to buy these and leave them in a box. That’s a way to force yourself into hanging pictures if I ever heard of one!
Do you have any tips on family portraits with birth and adoptive family members? Share!
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For more, read:
2. Another Great Visit Idea: Holiday Pictures.
3. 10 Great Ideas for Visiting in Open Adoption Parts One and Two.
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Photo Credit: ©2007, Jenna Hatfield. Some of the photos hanging on our wall in the living room. Family portraits done by Allura Modern.
Closeups, please?