You know the photo.
Everyone was supposed to look at the camera. Everyone was supposed to smile. It was supposed to be the lovely family photo you’d send to the grandparents, put in a frame and keep forever.
Instead, Dad blinked, the toddler made a run for it and the dog chose that exact moment to investigate something just outside the frame.
Perfect.
Because for every beautifully posed family photo, there are probably another 27 that went spectacularly wrong. And, if we’re honest, they’re usually much more fun to look back on.
Here are eight family photo fails almost everyone will recognise.
Four people. Eight eyes.
Apparently getting all eight of them open simultaneously is asking far too much.
There’s always one person who manages to blink at exactly the moment the photo is taken. Even better when everybody else looks fantastic, making a retake absolutely essential.
Then comes attempt two.
Different person blinking.
Sometimes it’s a sibling. Sometimes it’s a stranger.
Sometimes it’s the dog.
You’ve lined everyone up, checked the background and somehow failed to notice an additional family member sneaking into shot until you look at the photo afterwards.
Extra points if they’re pulling a face.
“Everyone look here.”
Mum looks at the camera.
Dad looks at the toddler.
The toddler looks at the dog.
The dog looks at a sandwich.
And the older child appears to have discovered something fascinating approximately six feet to the left.
Take 14 photos and there is a reasonable chance you’ll eventually get one where everyone is looking vaguely in the same direction.
Reasonable.
There’s always one.
Everyone else is smiling nicely while one member of the family decides this is their opportunity to immortalise themselves with their tongue out, eyes crossed or cheeks puffed up.
It’s particularly impressive when nobody notices until much later.
And although it probably wasn’t the photo you intended to take, it’s quite often the one that makes everyone laugh.
Lovely photo of Grandma.
Shame about the top of her head.
Or the family photo where everybody is present but Dad mysteriously ends at the ankles.
Cropping people is remarkably easy when you’re concentrating on getting everyone to smile, keeping the children still and pressing the button at roughly the right moment.
Fortunately, years later, nobody cares that Uncle Steve’s left elbow didn’t make the final cut.
“Just stand there for two seconds.”
No.
Toddlers have places to be.
You can dress them beautifully, position the entire family and have everyone smiling perfectly at the camera. But somewhere between “three…” and “…two”, they’ve decided the photo shoot is over.
The resulting picture normally features several smiling adults and one tiny blurred figure disappearing towards freedom.
You know the smile.
Teeth clenched. Eyes slightly terrified. Face bearing absolutely no resemblance to the expression your child normally makes when they’re happy.
Ask a child to smile naturally and apparently the entire concept of smiling immediately leaves their body.
“Just smile normally.”
“I AM.”
Of course you are.
Blurry. Badly lit. Someone’s looking away.
By every technical measure, it probably isn’t a particularly good photograph.
But then you remember what was happening when it was taken.
And suddenly none of that matters.
Because the photos we love aren’t always the ones where everybody is perfectly positioned and smiling at the camera. Sometimes they’re the ones that capture your family exactly as they really are.
Messy, distracted, slightly blurry and very rarely all looking in the same direction.
And those are often the ones worth keeping.
