About a month ago I was commissioned by the Daily Record to take a family portrait of a mum and her three year old child for a feature. I arrived at the house and started to set up my lights. Once I was ready the mother and her son sat down. Immediately the boy started trying to wriggle free saying he didn’t want his picture taken and ran up to his room. Hmm, I thought, this one could be tricky. Over the next ten minutes we both tried to persuade him to pose for a picture, but, to no avail. I started to get worried as I only had about twenty five minutes to get in and get my shot as I had another photo shoot to go to which couldn’t wait.
Over the years I have shot hundreds of portraits like this and have never failed to leave with what I was after. I started to think that maybe this was the first time I would have to phone the picture desk and tell them I couldn’t get a shot. This would be extremely embarrassing as they would have to probably send another photographer and more than likely I wouldn’t get another job from them.
I decided I wasn’t going to be beaten by a three year old having a tantrum.
I thought that he was more than likely just attention seeking, so I decided to ignore him and do some pictures of the mum on her own. Sure enough a few minutes later he came down the stairs, poked his head round the door and started watching what we were doing. So, working with the mum, I managed to get a great shot of the both of them together.
The result was a great picture and me leaving on time, breathing a massive sigh of relief.
I had to laugh when I saw the picture in the paper this week, as the picture looks great and the boy looks like an angel.
If only the readers knew!!
