I have always wanted to do family pictures in the cities where we’ve spent the summers, but I’ve never done it.  About a month before our trip I stumbled on the blog Love and London.  She offered vacation photo shoots at famous London landmarks and I jumped at the chance.  The day we were supposed to shoot was so hot and we had a 5:15 time slot.  I was afraid all our pictures would be squinty and sweaty and so I asked if we could push back our time an hour or so in order to get some better lighting conditions.  The photographer couldn’t do that, so we just went ahead. And I was right.  The lighting was terrible and resulted in some squinty pics and lots of blown out backgrounds to try to account for the shadows and the sun. The sky was a beautiful blue and the colors were so vivid, but you can’t tell that at all from the pics. Also, the photographer wasn’t very detail oriented.  We’ve always had our best luck with family pics when the photographer helps pose us.  Tell us where to put our hands or how to tilt our heads.  She didn’t offer any direction at all. When I first saw them I was pretty disappointed with how they turned out, but after I’ve sat on in a week or so, I like them more.  And there are 3-4 I love, so all in all, I’m glad we did it.  And I’m sure I’ll love them even more as the years go by.

This one is my favorite: 

And I love these ones of the kids.  Per usual, they each got a special animal in London and the pics of them with their animals melt my heart.  

I was pretty excited that we had lots of time left in our shoot to hit up the Graffiti tunnel I loved so much near Waterloo Station. 
This pic is probably my second favorite.