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Family Trip Means Lots Of Photo Opps!

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There were two words that could always unify my sister and I (at least for a moment) — Photo Opp!

Every mention of a photo opp was met with spontaneous eye rolls and groans as mom did her best to ignore our bemoaning and urged us with great zeal into position.

Stand here. Put your arm around each other. Smile — smile pretty. (Pretend you are having fun.)

Snap.

In a moment, it was over. The photo was taken and we could once again resume a look of discontent and go back to whatever it was we wanted to be doing instead. (Unless, of course, one or more of us was less than cooperative and had to be convinced to smile nicely.)

Family Vacation Photo Opp

It was only a moment, but to us it was torture. Sheer torture. Which is silly because thanks to mom we have shelves and shelves of photo albums capturing trips, events, birthdays and more. We can look back with a knowing smile and tease each other about fashion choices and reminisce about all the fun we had. And we did have a lot of fun.

Yes, mom tortured us by making us smile for every photo opp imaginable. But for that I thank her. And as I beg and plead with my own daughters to smile nicely for the camera, I mutter apologizes under my breath to my mother. The circle of life. 

While I now thank mom for all of the photos she has taken and continues to take, after transferring a long-lost family vacation video to DVD I couldn’t help but to poke fun at her… Just one more time. 

On one family trip, dad shot roughly 30 minutes of video. In that 30 minutes, he captured 10 such photo opps. Ahh yes, video proof of the dreaded photo opp. And naturally, I had to make a montage.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWR5x6MyPD0

(Yes, even when my kid sister hurt herself I knew, the photo must go on.)

The constant photo taking served my sister and I well. Not only do we have smiling happy photos, but we both learned (eventually) that it served us better to just smile every time we saw a camera come out. Whip out a camera in front of my sister or I, and you will see a smile flash. It’s just easier and the photo looks better for it!

This trip down memory lane was made possible by transferring our old 8 mm tapes to digital and DVD with YesVideo. My whole family has enjoyed reminiscing. If you have video footage locked away on an old format, do something about it. Relive your memories (and possible photo opps) with YesVideo.

Check out more of my YesVideo memories:

Family Memories YesVideo

Giveaway

One lucky winner will receive a $75 credit to YesVideo to use toward converting your old home videos to digital and DVD. (Note credit is good online only, not at retail locations.)

To enter – Please use the Rafflecopter form below to take advantage of your entry opportunities.

Contest ends February 5, 2014.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  2. Katrina larose says

    The betas from when I was little! Christmas Eve at my Grandparents house with 500 relatives squeezing into a little one bedroom apartment. Me singing “take me out to the ball game” at 18 mos old with my die hard Yankee fan grandfather. Christmas morning when my dad would PLUG IN his video recorder and turn on the overhead spotlight on us first thing in the morning lol! Not only seeing relatives that have passed, but, showing my son and my nieces and nephews how “cool” their parents looked!

    Reply

  3. Wendi S says

    I have VHS of my babies. So I really want to see them again. Thanks for sharing your video. Your Mom was so funny like my Mom. It made me really miss my Mom. You and your sister were adorable!

    Reply

  4. Robin P says

    My wedding is still on VHS. We used to watch it every year on our anniversary until we sold our VCR at a garage sale.

    Reply

  5. Candi S. says

    I would love to see my wedding. We have lost 4 family members since our wedding and it would be so nice to see them again.

    Reply

  8. Trisha W. says

    I love this! I take pictures here and there and my kids don’t really like to cooperate. I had to laugh as I read your post and watched the video clip. Hopefully down the line they will appreciate my pictures.

    Reply

    • Trisha W. says

      But to answer your question, I’d love to get a copy of my wedding on DVD. We never received a copy that my Uncle-in-law took 20 years ago. First baby clips would be great too.

      Reply

  11. Beeb says

    I have an 8mm film from when I was a toddler that no one in my family has ever seen, it’s on my list to get that converted at some point!

    Reply

  17. Digna D. says

    I don’t have any for converting. Your transfer turned out great. I can relate to the picture taking. My son hates it and half the time I can’t get him to smile. He does like to make goofy faces.

    Reply

  20. Nicole Brady says

    My folks have some videos from when we were in high school (that’s when we got our first video camera). I have no idea where any of them are but would love to see those again! (Although I think most of the footage is of my brothers and the wrestling team.)

    Reply

  22. Shell Feis says

    I’ve transferred some of my home videos using YesVideo & LOVE their service! I want to have some more transferred, like some of my old videos I made with friends where we were singing Spice Girls music in our jammies. I can just imagine sharing those videos on Facebook &tagging them all!

    Reply

  39. Sue E says

    I don’t have that many videos, and the couple of tapes that we do have, are not clear – they are grainy.
    Plus no one I know has a tape/VHS player anymore!
    But our tapes are of holidays & birthday parties – would LOVE to see the again & relive those memories!!

    Reply

  42. Jacqueline W. says

    I have a few tapes of when my children were little. Plus, my boyfriend has a few of his son. I’ve always meant to get them transferred on to DVD’s.

    Reply

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