A Spring Daffodils Smiley Day with 7 Cousins

When Emma approached me, she and her brothers wanted to surprise their parents with a 50th anniversary photo shoot gift of all of their children together. Like many grandparents, the cousins’ grandparents had been asking for updated photos of the grandchildren. (I love surprises and was looking forward to playing my part in bringing the gift idea into fruition.) While photographing a Spring Daffodils Smiley Day with 7 cousins from 3 different families sounded like a challenge, I was up for it.

This diverse group of cousins were great – from elusive smiles to beaming grins, from quiet and conscientious  to bubbly and vivacious, from sporty and competitive to fun-loving and mischievous,  there was one thing they all had in common and that was their enthusiasm, politeness and love for their grandparents.

Are you curious  to see how we created 7 different poses for the 7 cousins? Here you go:

The Location: Virginia Waters and the Valley of Daffodils in Great Windsor Park.

While “posing for photographs” isn’t at the top of the list of of fun things to do on a Saturday for most active pre-teen boys, they did really well.  There was enough space and time to kicking balls, collecting sticks, smelling flowers on the way to the daffodils and all of those presented great opportunities to photograph too.

Having cousins is something special, so I really wanted to capture the energy and uniqueness of this extended family, not only for the grandparents, but also for the children’s parents and especially for the cousins themselves to look back at  in years to come, smile at and reminisce over together.

The parents suggested a “GAP-clothing style” poses, so we had some fun with this idea… I think these guys and girls nailed it.

As they day went on, the brothers and sisters relaxed, and started coming up with their own their posing ideas – I loved photographing their suggestions!

After the walking, running, leaping, and patiently waiting during group posing, there was time for the cousins to relax  and catch up together among the beautiful daffodils.

I really enjoyed photographing and getting to know this diverse group of cousins and look forward to photographing families in the daffodils again next year!

PS. The gift was a great success and a highlight was receiving a phone call from the 7 cousins’ grandmother after their anniversary celebrations, thanking me for taking the photos.