Have Dh help pay for the sitting and prints and do plenty. One of entire five, one of each child, one of Dh and you, and one of Dh, you and two 'our' kids, and one of your two kids , one of DH and his son, and one of you and your kids.

Happy Dh and plenty of pictures of you to share with different family. Example, your sister (if you have one) would love perhaps shot of you and your kids, but not necessarily one with SS included. With Dh helping pay, SS can have some of the 'just him' to give to his family that is not necessarily interested in having you and the little ones included.

Win-win all around.

You can display what you please and put others in an album. And no hard feeling on Dh's part.

I started WW3 with my MIL when I had pictures done with my 3 month old and some with me and DH. SS16 lived 3 hours away at the time and we thought it was acceptable to have just dd in her infant photos. And we weren't going to drive 12 hours in a day to get him and take him back to his mom.

It's been drama ever since. MIL is still licking her wounds a year later.

my post was deleted by accident I guess.

How would your bio child 1 feel IF this was going on at his bio dads house?

How would YOU feel?

photo portraits always touch a sensitive chord with me.

years ago when the skids were all very small children dh took us all for a studio portrait.

the first thing the photographer asked was if i was the childrens mother. bad thing for her to do as this really shows the bias society has for step mothers.

she immediately arranged me in back of my husband with his arms around the children and the infant on his lap. i was posed with my arms around my husband and asked to smile.

looking back i should have just said no and had the photo taken of just the father and his children. when i see that photo from decades ago i still cringe.

I do two photo sessions per year. In the fall the whole family including SD10. I use these for our Family holiday card. Then in the spring I started to do just ours kids and DH for my mothers day gift. SD asked about those photos and I just told her they were on Mother's day weekend when she is with her mom. Since this happens every year that weeekend, she knows that Mothers day belongs to her mom and my kids will be with their mom so it makes sense to her.

Your SS is a part of your home and your family. You may not view him as a family member, but he is the brother to your kids and the son to your DH. You can't exclude him from family photos just because he isn't a "real" family member to you.

You and SS are the only two members of the five-person household who aren't blood-related. Should you both then be excluded? No. You should both be included. That doesn't mean you both need to be included in EVERY photo, but to purposefully exclude him would be inconsiderate and downright mean.

Schedule photos during a time he is around. Get multiple photos of him and everyone. Put up a mix of photos at home. If you didn't want him involved in your life and family, then you shouldn't have married his father. I know that sounds harsh, but it's the reality of the situation. He is related, by blood, to your children and your DH. He IS family. You can't cut him out just because you don't want to look at him.

I wish people would really think about what they are doing when they marry someone with children because, frankly, some people just shouldn't.

I've struggled with this dilemma for awhile. I want pictures done, I don't mind taking pictures with skids but I would really enjoy a nice picture of myself DH and DS2.
I've thought about hiring a photographer but I still think it may be weird/sad for skids to watch while the three of us take pictures without them. So if I do eventually do it I will probably do two seperate sessions ... one while they are at BMs and one when they are with us.
What's stopping me still is ... what can I even do with the pictures of the 3 of us once I have them .... and then that means I will have to put out a nice big happy family photo out.

We've had a lil drama from MIL over Facebook photos already ....

You and DH have an ours baby..... yes SS needs to be included in the family photo's... he's the baby's brother just as your other two are sibling to baby.... DH has 2 children in the home and you 3....

Yuu can have a picture with you and your 3, Dh has a picture with him and his 2, You, DH and ours baby have a picture...
your 2 and baby have a picture, SS and baby have a picture...

see a whole lot of family pictures...

It's fascinating how we try to ignore the realities of the messy lives we create. We marry and divorce, have kids we don't live with, then live with other people's kids who don't like us, we have kids out of wedlock that we take into wedlock with people who are not their parents and wonder why they hate them... What a fricking mess.

You want to justify a photo without your husband's son because you don't view SS as family. But you know that will be judged and you don't want to look bad. You can't have it both ways.
So do you fake it, have SS in the photo, act like it's not awkward because you're all just one big happy family? Everyone who would ever see that photo with SS in it probably knows the real situation anyway, so why bother to fake it in a photo?

On the other hand, when you put out that picture without SS, the slight will naturally be observed and embraced by SS, so if you decide to let the truth about how you really see the family hang out in the form of the photo, you should expect the ill will that naturally comes with it from SS. You've put out your definition of his dad's family and it doesn't include him. Naturally, that would kind of hurt.

You can't have it both ways: go get your perfect family photo as if SS doesn't exist, but assuredly you will slight SS and be judged by some for it - that is the lump you'll have to take. Or you can tolerate SS in the photo and face the reality that he exists, although it's so much easier and more comforting to act as if he doesn't.

In the photo or not, SS exists. The photo won't make him go away. That's the bigger rub we all have to come to terms with on this site.
It doesn't really matter what you do because this whole step thing is just so damn awkward and hopeless. But if you can stand it, I'd include him just so you'll always know you did what you could to bring everyone together when the kid was only 12 and still needs a dad and probably hasn't grasped the whole situation of his busted family yet. Down the pike, when things are even uglier, there might be some comfort knowing you tried to make the kid feel included, even when you didn't really want to. And you can always have daily pictures of your family without SS. I guess I'm just sort of imagining being 12 and seeing my dad in a family photo that I'm not in. That must suck. As an adult, it might be a little easier for you to endure having someone else's kid in your family photo than a 12-year-old can endure seeing his dad in a family photo without him.

If the shoe were on the other foot, what would you do? There is no planet where I would be willing to demonstrate anything that excluded my bio children as part of MY family. Knowing that, I would never ask my DH to do that, either.

I would include him.

Even though blended family life is not always peaches and cream, and there are plenty of thoughts which go through my mind that I am embarrassed of, it would be ten million times worse to look at a family photo every day knowing that my whole family isn't pictured there because of my petty thoughts.