I have taken thousands of photos of friends and family, them pregnant, getting married, their kids, pets...you name it. But I can count on one hand the times I've taken my 'big" camera out to take pictures of my own baby. There was the failed time when she was a couple of months old and I wanted her to lay on an old chair, positioned in the moss outside, shyly smiling at the camera as the sunlight danced across the trees behind her creating that perfect light and depth. I can tell you what she didn't want to do..all of the above. I gave up pretty quickly.
This time she was a bit easier to distract and in the dangerous move of acting model/photographer/child entertainer I had my camera set up on two books stacked on top of a lunch bag and finally a golden, metal owl for that extra height at the front of the lens. With the timer set to 2 seconds I had 2 seconds (duh) to press the button, put my arm back in a somewhat natural position and hope that Minea would look into the camera and hopefully not give my face anymore visible scratches before the shutter went off.
She did awesome.
