Keeping up with tradition....

It is a Holzer tradition that once the grandchildren turn one year old they have their picture taken in the traditional German lederhosen or dirndl outfit. These 8 x 11 pictures sit in a row of 6 across the top of  Jane & Herb's grand piano. There is a likeness to them all (minus the one granddaughter picture), the boys are all standing, the background in dark blue or black, and they are all smiling.

Today we took Enzo for this traditional one year photo. Our first obstacle has been to get Enzo to stand on his own. He is now 13 months old and not quite free standing or even walking. He can scale our furniture and apartment like crazy, but when it comes to letting go and standing on his own, he prefers to take a knee. Our second obstacle is to get Enzo to smile. He is a happy baby but he prefers to keep that a secret and not let you know with any smiles....that's a total give-away. And lastly, how to replicate the blue / black studio background. You would think that this would not be a problem since it's really the basic studio photo background, but we're talking about Vietnam here and pictures tend to get a little creative with photoshop.

Here's a view of the photo shoot:

Can you tell Enzo looks a little concerned about this? He is finding comfort in a plastic banana, which may need to be photoshopped from a couple pictures.

This is the photo team. They worked really, really, hard to get this child to smile. I have never heard such professional bird sounds and clacks of the mouth from a cameraman...seriously!

This room had every toy and prop imaginable. They are prepared for any type of picture  request, except a blue background. All of Enzo's pictures were taken with this white background and we are going to photoshop in the blue. It will be a memory in itself.

After our lederhosen session they offered to take Drey & Enzo's pictures in the traditional Vietnamese Ao Dai's.  Again, this place had it ALL. 

Trying to make magic happen, getting two kids to smile and look at the camera at the same time...

impossible! Enzo would not have anything to do with wearing the hat.

This was the hit of the day, a remote control car that Drey and Enzo could ride inside. Drey has asked me no less than 20 time this afternoon if we can go back to the picture taking place. I'm pretty sure this car has everything to do with that request.