PHOTOGRAPHY

Right around Christmas time I went to a Christmas light display at the botanical gardens.  It was very well done and a fun crisp walk in the winter night air is a wonderful family thing to do.  I couldn't help but notice, as we had to walk around them to avoid accident, the plethora of tripods.  My first thought was that maybe this was the 'must have' gift for seniors this year.  Then I noticed a healthy dose of the tripod wielding gang were moms with little kids in tow, often very patiently waiting for mom to get that amazing shot.  Then it dawned on me - these are probably bloggers or at least adamant facebook posters.  I understood their struggle to improve the photos on their wall/blog/board/tweet... the competition is pretty tough.  That's why I stopped taking my own photos after the first few months of blogging.  I now prefer using the photos of the professionals. Like the one above.
I decided to troll through my pinterest boards ( and other peoples) and come up with examples of why nobody needs to sacrifice precious family time to try and photograph something that has already been done by a professional.  My categories :

"PICTURE PERFECT"

A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS

EVERY PICTURE TELLS A STORY

I don't want to discourage any budding photographers ( actually these photos should inspire such a person) but using a tripod is not going to give you photos like these.  Talent, imagination, dyslexia... lot's of factors are at work here.
I'm just sayin' if those photos are meant to show all who want to look, that you and your family do interesting things, then ignoring the family to document said interesting things seems a bit backward...
Have fun forgetting the camera/phone/ipad... maybe someone else will photograph you and your kids because you look so randomly happy!