One day a woman called and wanted portraits of her three daughters, together and separately. Easy enough. She was traveling from a suburb a little farther away, and was referred by her friend, one of my regular clients. Great! Sounds like a fun session. Her daughters were grade school age, so that’s always easier than babies or toddlers.

I set up one of my standard backdrops and prepared for the session.

They arrived on time (always a good thing), and the three girls, all brunettes, were wearing blue jeans and black turtlenecks. Fantastic! I love this look.

The mom mentioned that she had a photo that she’d like me to emulate. Uh-oh. This is sometimes not a good thing, since I kind of have my own style, and people should be prepared to let me work my magic, and do my own thing. It always turns out way better that way.

But I’m open to suggestions, of course. I was certainly willing to look at her photo, and do the best I could to duplicate the look she was going for.

And she pulled out the photo.

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It was a picture of a beautiful woman with LONG BLOND HAIR, wearing a BACKLESS EVENING GOWN, ascending a LARGE MARBLE STAIRCASE like this one:

pixabay on pexels

Um….

<looking at photo> <then looking at girls in their black turtlenecks> <then looking at woman> <looking back at photo>

Um….

I mean, I am all for giving the client what they want. I want happy customers, and ideally repeat customers. But….

I didn’t know what to do with this, or even what to say.

Then she says “Well, it doesn’t have to look just like that, but I’m trying to duplicate the feeling of the photo.”

Um, ok…