Introducing my family!

I'm blessed to have six "children". They are mostly grown-up now, but I thought I would introduce them all anyway. The two boys are gone and making their own way now. I'm happy to still have my four girls at home with me. This photograph is the most recent "family" photograph; it was taken shortly after my husband died and I wanted a family photograph of just the children that year. It's dated about five years ago.

This photo happened in a funny way.... The kids were all home for once, so I said, "Well, we should take a family photograph!" Moans and groans issued from the couch in the living room where everyone was laying around. You have to understand what it is like to be raised by a mother who is a photographer.... Someone said, "Aw, Mom! Why don't you just take it here on the couch!" So I said, "Okay boys - pick the couch up and take it in the front yard!" Everybody got into it then and we had a blast. If you'll notice, Tomas' t-shirt says, "You say redneck like it is a bad thing!"

This was the last image I took with my professional old-timey film camera (a Mamiya 67). It had developed a light leak, which I didn't know until these images were processed. Alyssa is a whiz at photoshop and she managed to save the portrait, but it really took some doing. So you could say this portrait propelled me into the digital world of photography because for what it would have cost to fix my old camera, I bought a digital Nikon.