It's 1751 miles to Chicago

...we've got five children under the age of five, one camera, half of a gig's worth of space on a compact flash card, it's still light out and we're wearing matching shirts.

Hit it.

Very Mom's post about photoshopping her two kids together and Suburban Bliss's discussion of photo problems with kids reminded me of my favorite picture of my son and his four cousins (ages 5, 3, 18m, 18m, 1).

With digital, getting good shots of just one kid isn't too hard, you just keep shooting and throw away the bad ones. With two, it's tricky but can be done. With five (under the age of 5, no less)... there's just no point once they're all mobile.

Here's our first casual attempt when we only had four, July 2003:

Not exactly a rousing success. So six months later, when there were five and we were all together again, we resolved to try for real this time, in our home studio:

Not too bad... the littlest one was too young to smile and the middle two weren't mobile yet, although my son was too busy trying to swallow his fist to smile and the eldest two were old enough to hear and then ignore directions.

Fast forward another six months, all five are plenty mobile, and try again ("they just don't get it, do they?"):

This time it's the littlest one (by age, that is, not girth due to my little runt) trying to stuff something into her craw, my boy's pissed that mom hasn't figured out that pictures of five kids together just don't work, #2 is angelic and #1 is trying to stop #4 from escaping while probably wishing he could do the same.

Eh. So finally, when we had them all together again this past September, I resolved to try it again but this time with a lot lower stress. So we did a little photo math:

+

+

+

=
<drumroll>...

When people see this print on my door, everyone wants to know how I got five kids to pose like that for one shot. When I tell them the story, their next reaction is "Oh, you can tell it's a composite because #4 is abnormally large" and I tell them no, he actually is that big.

Comments

[Very Mom]

SHUT UP! That is the rockingest composite I've ever seen, and I love it that they're all numbered. It's the only way, and I only have two!

[KC Lemson]

Thanks! We're going to have them all together again next week, and since I'm the family photographer, I will refuse to do more than 2 at a time, if they must have a group photo it will be a stitched one. :-)

[Kris]

I had to snatch my oldest child's head off a picture and put it on another for our Christmas card this year. (It was the only picture that Youngest Child wasn't making a goofy face!) It turned out beautifully.

Being able to edit pictures rocks! LOL!

[Jenny]

Brilliant as usual KC - I love having my neice and nephew in one pic all looking happy. Those pics of crying kids sure were cute the first dozen times or two. Now they need to smile d&mnit!

Love you!
Your big sis,
Jen

[Big guy's momma!]

Hey! That's my son you're talking about. Abnormally large, indeed! HARUMPH

[Cynical Mom]

Hey, i'm not the one who said it, it's the coworkers :-)