I kept forgetting to begin with that when telling this story, and it causes a lot of stress for people.
This is the story of our family picture.
It begins a year ago when my grandpa said that he'd like to get the whole family together for an updated family portrait. Despite having a small baby and a toddler at the time, I decided that I needed to be the one to organize an 16 person/four generation photoshoot. I researched area photographers, reviewed portfolios, sent out inquiries, coordinated schedules (or so I thought), created an inspirational Pinterest board, decided on a color/style scheme and composed an email detailing such scheme that I then followed up on with personal, harassing phone calls to various family members about their wardrobe choices.
We all showed up on a Saturday afternoon at the appointed location, primped and ready for our close-up...aaand there was no photographer. We'd had a miscommunication, and they had us scheduled for Sunday afternoon.
I was pretty devastated.
My husband sprung into action and collected cameras and organized an impromptu photoshoot using timers and a makeshift tripod. He also had to talk to the photographers when they got my 20 messages asking where they were and called me back because I was too upset.
We decided we'd try again in the spring, but apparently I needed a whole year to recover.
This month I decided that it was time, assembled the troops once again, agreed to meet at the same park, and triple checked the date.
Half of the family was running late, so we started in with pictures of the family branches that were present. After our family's little shoot, while waiting for everyone else, my husband was playing fetch with our dog. As we have done a million times.
I'm standing off to the side trying to get a hold of people to find out when they'll arrive when I hear shouting and look over to see my husband--in his carefully selected picture clothes--"wrestling" our dog on the ground.
Trying to keep my language clean for the kids, I asked what the heck he could possibly be doing.
My husband had sent a fast, low (meant to go long) throw to get Kona to run after it, but Kona intercepted the ball at close range and the ball went too far back in his mouth and lodged in his throat.
The ball was the size of a tennis ball but made of hard, thick rubber. We bought it because it floats and stands up to Kona's chewing, but it's heavier than we'd like it to be.
When he realized Kona couldn't get the ball out of his throat, he ran over to help him, but it was absolutely stuck. The doggy Heimlich (I'm not kidding) wasn't working.
I did not have the capacity at this point to deal with the thought of my dog keeling over...I was convinced that he was going to upchuck the stupid ball any second just like he's done with athletic socks, an unfurled spool of ribbon, and various other things over the years. I've always called him a junkyard dog because I'm pretty sure he could eat or survive anything.
But as the seconds ticked by, it became clear that he was in trouble. My husband scooped him up and threw him in the back of our car, and the photographers assistant jumped in to help direct him to the nearest emergency vet.
And then the rest of my family arrived.
When they got Kona to the clinic, he was passed out and his breathing was shallow. They ran him in and his neck was shaved in preparation for a tracheotomy, but they managed to pull the ball out with some sort of clamp without having to put him under or actually traching him. And when they let my husband back in the room, Kona wagged his tail.
They kept him the rest of the day for observation and gave him a sedative to help him rest and an anti-inflammatory to keep his throat from swelling up.
My husband and the assistant came back, and we finished up the pictures.
Once that was done, my husband went back to check on Kona before going to get his own prescription for his swelling hand which he had snagged on Kona's teeth while trying to get the ball out.
Kona was back to normal by evening with a shaved throat and a bandage where they'd given him an IV as souvenirs. Also, we got the ball back (!).
And the pictures look great.
I suppose all's well that ends well, but you won't catch me organizing any large photoshoots any time soon.
Makes you wonder what kinds of stories photographers collect.
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