Have you ever wondered what happens when you cut someone’s head off in a family photo? I seem to have stumbled across the answer today.

I swear I didn’t crop this photo.

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The illustrious Tracy Green.

One of my favorite things about photography is catching people with a real smile. I get really tired of taking people’s pictures and getting the generic “I’m posing for a photo” smile. Real smiles make me giggle, mainly because it reminds me of whatever it was that I or someone did or said to get that reaction. It adds a new dimension to a photo because it is pure joy coming through the lens.

On my road trip this summer, I found myself offering to take people’s photo almost everywhere I went. It was a way for me to break the ice with people, and provide them with a great photo. Just the simple act of offsetting the couple to the left or right of frame sometimes would make them have a photo and not a snapshot. I got many types of reactions to the offer, mostly it was “great!”, but occaisonally I would get the “how much does it cost?” reaction. I only took their photos for free, but it was amusing to hear the people who suspect that their is a catch. I think in this day and age, it is pretty typical to expect a catch.

At an overlook of the Capitol Reef in Utah, I had a Russian family of about 12 pile out of a minivan while I was taking some panoramic photos . I offered to take their photo and the father immediately jumped on the offer. He was very happy. Everyone else in the car looked like they had been traveling with their family for way too long. The overlook of Capitol Reef off of I-70 is about 200 miles from nowhere.

As they went to line up for their photo, the father candidly said “If you need us to do anything, just say what you want us to do.” My eyes lit up – “Oh really? Ok, when I count to 3, everyone should jump.”

And half of them did it! The mother gave me the evil eye, but everyone else was giggling at the idea. The youngest girl in the group, probably about 8 or 9 years old, just loved it! As I jumped in the motorhome and drove away, she was still smiling the biggest toothy grin you ever saw and waved goodbye to me. I could tell that I had made a lasting memory that they would all remember of their road trip that summer.

I had regretted not taking a photo of the Russian family to go along with the story, but I figured I would find an opportunity to make more memorable photos on the road trip. Monument Valley proved to be the place that would allow me to take more fun photographs. I encountered a German father and son, who were traveling with their son’s friend. The were game to take some atypical photos, which proved very fun. They got so wrapped up in pointing at things, which is what I had asked them to do, they just kept doing it after I had taken several photos.

I then encountered a Japanese tourist who wanted to be photographed jumping off the ground in front of Monument Valley. I asked him if I could take their photo jumping as a group.  After he translated to the entire group, everyone started laughing, and kept laughing. I was given every camera that the group had and took at least one photo with eight different cameras! I asked if I could have a photo as well, and they just couldn’t stop laughing, they were having so much fun, and you can see it – this is the 9th photo of them jumping! I think they could have just kept right on jumping.

So I ask ya’ll to take a risk on your vacations and trips home this holiday season. Take a photo with a twist. Take a photo of everyone with their hands in the air, or with everyone looking down like a family huddle, or use your imagination. Post a link to the photo you take in the comments!

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… for home-made freshly baked chocolate chip cookies!
Wait! When is it not the season for that?

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I walked by this camper today and surely this has to have been customized for Burning Man. I’ve never seen so many cargo boxes on one vehicle before! I count 10 cargo boxes! there were a couple of bikes and a scooter on the back, sorry I didn’t get a pic. This thing could be loaded up with a massive amount of stuff, and has custom window shutters!

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