Author Photo

Once in my life I’ve done a photo shoot. It was for a modeling portfolio—but that is another story and a boring one to boot. Okay, I did do one other shot for my very first author photo, but those photos were taken by my daughter’s friend who was sixteen at the time so it wasn’t intimidating (Thanks, Rebekah, you did a wonderful job.) However, the time had come for a new photo.

We have a friend who’s a photographer. And she was having a special sale on photo shoots. It seemed like a great way to get an author photo and family Christmas picture. (I usually take the family Christmas photo with a cheap camera on a tripod and a timer amid grumbling and gnashing of teeth. And the lighting is always weird with half of us in the shade and half in the sun.)

Having a real photographer sounded great until I discovered an hour before the shoot, that the six of us don’t own clothes in the same color family. Ariel prefers muted colors—greys and browns. I like brighter colors—oranges, greens, and reds. The boys generally have whatever colors were on sale that their grandmother liked and bought them for their birthdays. My bed was covered with clothes none of which worked together. I was nearly panicked, telling myself that I was an idiot for not making clothes decisions earlier in the day/week.

Ariel said, “Let Dad do it when he comes home.” Now don’t cringe. I know most men don’t know a teal from a Prussian blue. But most men aren’t gifted artists. Calvin is. And his specialty is color. He can look at a beige wall, go to the paint store, and bring home the identical color. (Apparently, he “paints” the color in his mind—all he has to do is match it at the store.)

When Cal got home, he glanced at the piles of clothes on the bed and said, “Luke wears this, Matt this, Jake that, Ariel this, you this, and I’ll wear that.”

And..it worked!

Here are a couple of photos. They were taken by the amazing Rachael Venema of Raeven Photography. You should check out her website.