After a very light evening rain shower, the children called me to come outside, saying, "Mommy, we found treasures!  Please come see the treasures the rain left!"

Who could resist?  I simply had to investigate their treasure.  

Kaira needed a student photo ID for official purposes (which shall be blogged later), so in typical homeschooler do-it-ourselves fashion, I set out to create one.  

The first thing I realized was that amid the hundreds of thousands of photos on my hard drives, none have the "mug shot look" suited to this purpose.  (There's a reason for this; staring straight at the camera in front of a dull backdrop makes for beyond boring portraiture.)  

It couldn't be helped however, so I took Kaira out in front of the barn and shot her.  (With a Canon, no less)  Mission accomplished, I realized that all my children were missing out on school portrait packages and I figured I might as well shoot them all while I was at it.  (That's a Canon camera, by the way...) 

The color versions all have a school-photo-blue background, but I rather like them in black and white--unless they are going on an official ID card when I have to bend (grudgingly) to convention.

(I seem to be in a parenthetical mood in this entry.)  Without further ado (and with just one last set of parentheses) here's our take on school portraits: