Sorry, no photos! (on Random Photo Tuesday)

I've never had professional photos taken of my kids. Nobody ever seems appropriately horrified when I tell them that. At the very least I expect a little gasp or something… at worst a huffy what kind of mother are you? lecture. But nobody even raises an eyebrow. Everybody says, "Oh but you take such great photos. It's not a big deal."

But to me, it's a big deal. If you know me at all, it's pretty obvious that photos are important to me. For the first year or two of their lives, my kids probably thought that big clunky black thing was just a part of Mommy's face. My kids have been photographed. A LOT. Just not professionally.

It's not that I didn't want professional photos. During the time my biological clock was ticking so loudly that it blocked out all rational thoughts, I saw cute baby photos everywhere I turned and imagined having those same photos taken of MY baby one day. I imagined all those photo sessions, with my adorable baby dressed in an adorable outfit propped into some adorable pose next to an adorable prop.

But as soon as the actual adorable baby was born, my focus changed a bit. Of course I still wanted cute photos, but beyond being consumed by the obvious stuff: non-stop nursing, burping, diaper-changing, never sleeping … We had suddenly become a single income household and suddenly the thought of staying home with this brand new baby had become critically important. Unnecessary purchases fell out of the budget. And though I'm fairly certain professional photographs felt like a necessity at the time, I eventually had to face the fact that they weren't an actual requirement.

I remember early on, thinking oh, we could just get professional pictures taken a few times and just buy a few photos and it wouldn't cost that much. But deep down, I knew that when it comes to photos, I have no self-control. The way that other women lust over shoes, purses, jewelry… that's how I am with photos. I'm impulsive. I can't even be trusted not to purchase BAD photos. This was proven to me years earlier in the event I shall refer to as the Glamour Shots from Hell incident.

This wasn't even the real Glamour Shots… It was some knock-off outfit visiting a department store… They lured me with a free sitting and I thought oh sure, why not? That sounds like fun! I can't say it was so much fun though, as it was agonizing, watching my transformation in the mirror and thinking Really? They call this Glamour? But I told myself they knew what they were doing and maybe somehow this would look better in photographs than it did in real life.

After it was all over, they sat me down for a consultation, where a salesman slowly went over the prices of the extremely overpriced packages. They had a huge gold-leafed tri-fold display of my photo proofs on the table in front of me… And I sat there like a deer in headlights, wanting to look away but finding myself unable to. The photos… they were... well what can I say? They were horribly embarrassing. I mean RIDICULOUSLY EMBARRASSING.

In some of the photos I look like I'm wearing my grandma's fur coat and I appear to be naked underneath. Let me tell you, my grandma would not be happy about that! And that thing I'm doing with my eyes... I'm assuming they were trying to get me to look sexy, but really, it's just disturbing. In others I'm wearing a black leather (well probably pleather) halter top, flashin' some naked shoulder and I have a black leather jacket on BACKWARDS… No clue what the backwards jacket was all about, but my head is somewhat resting on my hands, which seem to be clasped in prayer. I assume I was praying that I didn't look as ridiculous as I felt.

After looking at the proofs, I immediately thought to myself that this would be easy. I would not be buying any of these photos.

But the longer the sales pitch lasted, with the sales guy ogling over the obvious beauty that had been captured in those photos… and with the receptionist dropping by to mention that WOW my photos had turned out so gorgeous, some of the best she'd seen… Really? Ya think? You don't think I look completely ridiculous? Was it possible that they were seeing something I wasn't? (Yep, probably COMMISSION CHECKS, you moron!)

I mean it was such an obvious ploy. But my brain must have started to melt away as I sat there. I started to think well maybe someday I'll look back and be glad I took these. (It's been well over a decade now, and someday has not yet arrived.)

It started harmlessly enough and I thought well maybe I could just buy one or two photos… But then it was revealed that the price for even the smallest package was in the high $200 range, which was INSANE especially considering that I HATED THE PHOTOS. But there I sat, feeling guilty… not wanting to offend anyone… thinking that I had wasted so much of these peoples' time, not to mention my own. The salesman, with his long agonizing speech. The hairstylist, who had worked so hard curling and teasing my hair into that big, poofy, curly do that had been quite popular only a decade before. The makeup artist, who worked magic with blush and eyeliner… as long as you think harsh, obvious makeup is magic. The outfits they chose were so creative. I mean really… fake diamonds, feather boas, fur, leather, lace…sometimes all at once. The photographer, who worked tirelessly to bend me into the most painfully awkward poses imaginable. This amazing team had put a huge amount of time and effort into making me look like an incredibly awkward high-priced hooker. Could I really just walk away, ungratefully?

So yes, I bought the photos, cringing painfully as I handed over the credit card. I still have them. I keep them filed away in the painfully expensive lessons-learned category along with my first car (lesson: don't pick a car just because it's cute) and an ex-boyfriend or two (don't pick a boyfriend just because he's cute). I didn't actually keep the car or the ex-boyfriends, but I do have the photos.

I'm not sure I've ever shown the photos to anyone… maybe my mother, but I wouldn't give her any for fear she would proudly display them on the mantle. I did put one in Scott's Christmas stocking one year, seriously intending it as a gag gift. Like look at what a seriously hot mama you landed!!! Thank goodness I gave Scott the photo with the smiling pose rather than the trying-way-too-hard-to-look-sexy pose, because I will never ever forget the moment when many, many years later, I walked into Scott's office at PeopleSoft for the first time and saw that horrifying photo, framed and displayed prominently on his desk.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOoooooo! What's this doing here?" I asked , trying to quickly hide it in my purse. But he wouldn't let me. He said he loved that photo. Oh the horror.

So back to the baby pictures, knowing myself well enough to know I wouldn't be able to just buy a few photos, I started doing my own photo shoots at home. I thought I would save the professional photos for the milestones. I planned to have newborn photos taken and then I figured I'd have them done again for her first birthday. But I'm a natural born procrastinator. The problem with newborn portraits is that there is a very small newborn window. Somehow I didn't realize this. Turns out if you procrastinate long enough on the newborn portraits, you might be able to use them as senior portraits.

Really, try calling a photo studio to schedule a newborn portrait session. When they ask how old your baby is and you say something along the lines of say five or six… they will ask if you are talking about days or weeks. When you say, "years" there will be a cold silence on the other end of the phone during which they are deciding what to write about you in the margin of the appointment book… Crazy? Cuckoo? Loony? Pick your adjective. It doesn't matter. That icy silence tells you that they are scheduling your appointment with either the new guy who has ZERO photography experience or the photographer who everyone knows is hitting the crack pipe on his lunch hour.

So before I knew it, the newborn days had passed, and then I didn't get around to having photos taken on Amanda's first birthday. Pretty soon I'd totally missed the baby stage. Once I got on the no pro-photo-roll, I started thinking that when I finally got around to it, these better be some darn nice photos… which made me a little nervous. Nervous about picking the perfect adorable outfit, and doing her hair in some totally adorable style, neither of which I consider myself particularly good at… And then I'd have to find a good photographer… probably not the department store variety because we all know I'd spend a ton of money even if they were awful and then I'd probably be scarred permanently by the experience and it would be another five years before we went again. So I continued to procrastinate because really, it was just so much easier to take my own pictures.

Fast-forward to August 2009, when Shutterfly calls and asks if they can photograph Amanda and Alyssa. Umm. Gee that's a tough one…. YES, YES, YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

Tune in soon (and when I say soon, don't hold your breath) for part two: "Amanda & Alyssa, Shutterfly Supermodels!"