Mike Bender - Awkward Family Photos

Copyright 2010 by Awkward Family, LLC

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Three Rivers Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. www.crownpublishing.com

Three Rivers Press and the Tugboat design are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Awkward family photos / Mike Bender and Doug Chernack1st ed.
1. FamiliesHumor. 2. FamiliesPictorial works.
3. Portrait photographyHumor.
I. Chernack, Doug. II. Title.
PN6231.F3.B46 2010
818.602dc22 2009050905

eISBN: 978-0-307-59228-6

Cover design by Daniel Rembert

Cover photograph courtesy of the Sparks family

v3.1

This book is dedicated to our own awkward families

amily. Theyre the people we love, the people we trust and confide in, the people we identify with. But theres something else about family that isnt often spoken about, because, well, its not always comfortable to admit. So, lets just put it out therefamily is awkward. Thats right. When a group of people with the same name and different personalities are forced to spend most of their lives together, plenty of uncomfortable moments are sure to follow. And when a camera is there to capture one of those moments, an awkward family photo is born.

So, we set out to create a friendly place where people could suffer together and feel comfortable sharing their own odd family moments. We launched AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com in April 2009 with a handful of pics gathered from our families and friends. A friend who worked for a radio station in Providence, Rhode Island, offered to post our link on the stations website. We thought we would get only a few hits, but when the link was picked up by radio stations all over the country, photographs of families straddling trees and piled on top of one another flooded in, with comments like Thank you for showing me that my family isnt the only one! and Oh, you think your family is awkward??? They were sent to us from teens, mothers, fathers, and grandparents. And they didnt just come from the United States. There were submissions from Australia, England, Norway, Brazil, the Czech Republic, China, and all over the world. It quickly became clear to us that the awkward family was a universal phenomenon.

This book features popular photos and stories from the site, and also many never-before-seen ones. Ultimately, though, it is about much more than just photos and stories. Its about celebrating the family experience and shining a light on all of those deliciously awkward moments that come with the price of membership: the road-trip sing-along, the meeting of the in-laws, having to take a cousin to the school dance.

There has been much debate on the website as to what constitutes a family photo. For us, it has always included everything from the classics (portraits, holidays, vacations, weddings, etc.) to those random pictures we probably have stuffed in a drawer or packed into shoeboxes in the attic (old school photos, family pet pictures, even the solo shot Mom made us take with our viola). As far as a perfect definition of awkwardness, we dont know that it exists. Everyone can look at a picture and take away something different about what makes it awkward, but as long as the viewer feels some level of discomfort, there is awkwardness.

We want to acknowledge and thank the people who have made the awkwardness possiblethe amazing families who so generously shared their photos with us. You let us into your homes and you did it with a sense of humor. Through your pictures, we see our own families and can take comfort that were in good company. It is our hope that this book will bring all our families a little closer together as we acknowledge those special times when we wished we were a lot farther apart.

Awkwardly,
Mike Bender and Doug Chernack
www.AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com

alk into just about anyones home and you can find one hanging prominently on the wall proudly displayed for all to see. An attempt at wish fulfillment for Mom and Dad, the family portrait provides the chance for them to capture the ideal vision of their broodridiculously happy, clean-cut, well-dressed, and not trying to kill one another. For some of us, the image was created in a mall studio where a professional photographer arranged us by height, tilted our heads, placed our hands on our siblings shoulders, and reminded us to keep smiling despite the blinding lights in our faces and the dreary backdrop behind us. Others opted for the old self-timer technique, which left us frozen in the same position for over an hour while Dad tried to make the damn thing work.

But if we look past the matching sweaters and the choreographed poses, we will often see a more interesting storythe true family dynamic, complete with quirks and vulnerabilities. Perhaps not the ideal family Mom and Dad were hoping to spotlight, but the results are often the most honest snapshots of all.

The photographer felt that adding a fake plant would make this portrait look more natural.

This family sends a mixed message of Welcome to our home and Stay the hell off our property.

Choose your own adventure.