Easter has come and gone now, one of those quieter holidays where I planned to show up with the camera and a lens or two in the little shoulder bag, make a few images throughout the day, and keep it low-key.

That lasted until an hour before we left, when I ended up packing the backpack with the aforementioned, plus some.  And by the end, 4GB of photos.

What changed?  After all, it’s only Easter – and while I’m really not sure how other people celebrate Easter, for me it’s an afternoon spent with my girlfriend and her family, eating too much and lounging around.  It’s not the most interesting subject matter, so after you get through a few shots of the little kids in their Easter outfits, everything is pretty low key.

And all went as planned at our first stop; Mandy’s little sister in her lovely Easter dress stole the show, I started shooting with the 17-35L and printing from my PoGo in between.  Then the cousins joined in, and then everybody wanted a shot for Facebook, and I actually kept pretty busy with the camera in hand.  Especially when the party moved outside for some baseball!

We ended the day with Mandy’s mom’s side of the family: I swapped out for the telephoto here and shot on the deck, where everyone was enjoying the nice weather.  They struck up a game of bean-bag toss, so I got some shots of that as well.  Nothing too complex, just fun stuff, natural lighting.

This is what holiday photos are all about, to me.  I’m not interested in having a ton of snapshots, or photos of the food spread, or a posed group portrait.  It’s more fun just to keep a little chronicle of the day, let things flow as they will and capture a moment here and there, when they’re worth capturing.

What happened between the two family get togethers?  Well, that’s the surprise that caused the change in my original plans – and you’ll have to check back tomorrow to read about it.  Suffice to say, it involves a lot of Easter cuteness.