Anyone who has attempted to take family photos with their kids knows the struggle can be quite real, especially when children — and, in particular, babies — are less-than-interested in smiling or posing.
It’s a life lesson a mom and dad from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, recently learned on-the-spot when they attempted to take their first family photos with their 10-month-old daughter Emerson Frandsen.
Considering it’s the baby’s first Christmas, dad Jeff Frandsen, 29, figured it would be a good time to try and capture a precious moment for the family’s Christmas card. Little did he know that the resulting photo would end up going viral, and sparking plenty of laughter along the way.
“We’ve never taken a family photo before,” dad Jeff Frandsen told InsideEdition.com. “Well, obviously, she’s 10 months so this will be her first Christmas.”
But after they started taking shots with photographer Sam Interrante, Emerson reached down and grabbed her dad’s glasses, resulting in a photo that went “hilariously wrong,” as the outlet reported. In the snap, Jeff appears to be trying to hold it all together, while his wife, Liz, looks entirely surprised and motions to stop the baby from snatching the glasses.
And the family goldendoodle, Frankie? He is seen simply looking on, apparently unimpressed by the spectacle:
“I tried my best to keep staring straight at the camera, and I’m feeling one eye pop, and the other I’m keeping together with the eyebrow, [thinking] ‘Hold on to the glasses!'” Jeff told Inside Edition of the awkward moment.
While the family went into the shoot hoping for a comical shot, Jeff said this one was entirely “authentic” and “spontaneous” and that he wouldn’t have been able to create or replicate it even if he tried.
After sharing the picture with friends and family, Jeff later decided to post it to Reddit. From there, it gained steam and spread.
“I wanted to share the image with Reddit because the laughs and joy it was bringing to my friends and family was something I wanted others to experience,” he told the Huffington Post. “It’s been a crazy few weeks around this country, and a goofy family photo can only put a smile on one’s face, right?”
Interrante, 27, recently blogged about photographing the family, explaining his quest to adequately capture 10-month-old Emerson’s world.
“As a portrait photographer, it is paramount for me to communicate truth in the photographs I take. ‘Look here and smile’ often just doesn’t work because our human instinct picks up on the disingenuity almost immediately,” he wrote. “So often the moments between the breath, the ‘outtakes’ capture that authenticity, and it resonates with people. So when Jeff posted this image below on Reddit, the world felt it.”
See Interrante’s other shots of the family here.
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