Instagram Pictures and How Long They Took

Welcome to this first installment of Instagram pictures and how long they took.

Take, for example, this photo. If you think this is the first shot I snapped, you'd be wrong. I had no earthly idea--as in, IT NEVER CROSSED MY MIND BEFORE IN MY LIFE UNTIL I HAD A BLACK SON--that lighting doesn't just automatically work for taking pictures of dark skin. In half of all the pictures we take, Matthew's face is a dark circle with no features whatsoever. In the other half of all the picture we take, Troy's eyes are closed. It's super.

The shadow created by this here helmet made my boy's eyes disappear in the first couple pictures I took. This one was probably the third shot. So what I'm saying is that this, "Hey let me snap my life and put it on Instagram" phenomenon is not what it seems. It's really a, "Hey let me take a dozen pictures until I get one that might work and then I'll edit the heck out of it."

Garrett asked me if this shirt was a picture of a bear riding a crocodile. I had to give him a lesson in state flags. Or, at least, in the California state flag. It's just now crossing my mind that I might not know what the Utah flag looks like. I maybe haven't paid any attention. Seriously. This is ridiculous. Is it blue? Is there a bee hive on it? A temple? I just looked it up. Two out of three. Anyway. 

I was so amused by his idea of the crocodile surfing bear that I wanted to post a picture of it. But then I realized that I was basically going to be taking a selfie of my chest. So there was some strategy involved. How to get the focus ON the bear and OFF the person wearing the bear? After a handful of snaps, I went with this one.

We live in a weird world where there is always a camera in our pocket or our purse. Even though it looks like I took this picture from somewhere in Nebraska during the 19th century (er, in a time warp where they have asphalt in the 1800s), I actually took it from the parking lot of the boys' school. A school where, from any other angle, you'd see suburban homes, a temple or two (not pictured on the Utah flag as I've recently learned), telephone lines, an elementary school, and/or the entire Salt Lake Valley. These are pronghorn antelope which I had no idea actually lived less than a mile from my house. This is actually the only shot I got because I was trying to get closer and they decided to take off running.

This was like, maybe, the 20th picture we took to try to get a decent one. We attended a quinceanera and got dressed up fancy. Since we were so dapper, we needed to commemorate it with a picture. But someone had his eyes closed or someone else looked like a goon or the shadows were all wrong. Until, finally, HOORAY! We did it! (Thanks, Chris, for capturing it!)

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This isn't an Instagram picture, or even a picture I took on a cell phone, but it's five years old now and that's just crazy talk. I love these guys. I love how much they have adored each other since the very beginning.