I thought we'd have a little fun today!  I know most people, myself included, want their pictures to be perfect the first time, every time.  But that's not realistic.  Life's not perfect - there are bumps in the road, "grin and bear it" situations, and moments when we're just done.  Many times, photo sessions have those same moments.  As a photographer, we have 2 choices: 1 - get annoyed and risk making the situation worse or 2 - roll with it, take the shot anyway because it's great to laugh at later, and know that moods can change on a dime.
So, in that spirit, below you'll find a collection of some of my favorite "take the shot anyway" moments.  They're good for a laugh, and in some cases, they remind me of how far I've come since starting my business.

Babies - some of my favorite subjects to shoot and definitely some of the BEST sources of photo shoot outtakes there is! There will be tears, there will be bodily fluids, and there will be some crazy expressions.

Working our way up from babies, we have toddlers and young children.  Many times they're even less predictable than infants.  If nothing else, their melt downs are more dramatic!

There are two types of photographers - photographers who LOVE photographing teenagers and photographers who HATE photographing teenagers.  I'm in the 1st group, and they usually leave their session convinced I'm a complete dork.  It's by being my dorky, silly, jokey self that gets those great candid smiles mom's looking for!  And that look - you know the look - I get it too!  Check it out!

Sessions with pets can lead to some GREAT outtakes as well!  In this one, the dog yawned just as I took the shot.  I kept it because it looks like it's about to eat its owner's face off.  Don't worry, Stella (the dog) was actually awesome!

I'll finish this post with pictures of my own family!  These are from a session I did 2 Easters ago in an attempt to get "one great shot" of my step daughters with their dad.

This is real life.  Embrace it!

I was extra excited the morning of the Kingsman family portrait session!  Katie had asked me to choose a good location in Pensacola because she'd be going straight from our "first thing in the morning" session to work.  This was perfect as there was a fantastic park I'd been just itching to do a shoot at that was only a few miles from her office!  
The sun hadn't even burned off the clouds yet when Katie, her husband, and their little boy drove up.  
As you can see, the Kingsman family included a 1 year old - a 1 year old little boy at that!  Ok, no worries. I explained to mom and dad that we'd let him explore and as long as they kept smiling at me I'd get his attention and we'd have the shot!  That's one of the things parent's forget sometimes.  Mom and dad will be trying to get their little one to look at me, but then, when little one actually does look at the camera, mom and dad are looking at the little one.
Well, not only did mom, dad, and little man rock their session, Stella the dog was a rock star too!  I only WISH my dogs were as chill and well behaved as she was!

I had the pleasure of spending the afternoon of Veterans Day 2014 in Milton, FL at the North West Florida Railroad Museum for a special family portrait session!  I call it a special family portrait session because in about 2 hours time, we did 2 year old pictures of little Miss Kaleigh, 7 year old pictures of beautiful Emily, family portraits with mom and dad, AND family portraits for this year's Christmas card.

Kaleigh, in typical 2 year old fashion, wanted nothing more than to explore all of the cool new things at the railroad museum.  So, that's exactly what we did!  And when she still wasn't completely interested in sitting still for a couple of more posed portraits, mom broke out the bubbles!!

Now, I'm not going to share the family Christmas photo - that's mom's job - but I am going to leave you with my favorite picture from the whole session!