Last November my spawn was sitting beside me helping edit images.

As a side note when he does this quite a few of you end up with butterflies on your faces. These never make it into your galleries.

My Facebook pinged.

As I was typing a message my son was scrolling through my feed.

"WOW Mom! Look at that photo! That is an incredible photographer! Can I do that?"

The images he was looking at were from another local photographer offering fairy sessions.

I was not going to say no to him but:

A) He was calling another photographer incredible. Which made me jealous.

B) It was November and I am in the middle of the holiday photo-everyone-call-at-the-last-minute-to-try-and-get-the-entire-family-in craziness.

C) It was $250. Yes this photographer is worth it but we just got done paying for expensive college books with Thanksgiving and Xmas coming up.

D) His Mother is a photographer.

Photography is just like any other art.

Asking Picasso to paint like Caravaggio would be crazy.

I am not great with photoshop. I can edit skin and fly away hair, but making a magical scene look real was not in my wheel house.

I looked out the window.

The sun had almost set. 

We had maybe ten minutes tops before darkness. It was 45 degrees out.

This was my fault. I taught the boy to read and I have a love of A MidSummer Night's Dream.

I grabbed his hand and ran out the door with my camera.

We tromped through the park across the street for five minutes. 

He followed absolutely none of my directions which is why you don't photograph your own kids.

It was frustrating.

We got the shots and they sat on my computer for months.

I don't like to post a lot of personal work when I have client editing to do.

I finally opened up the files and Flynn helped me edit them, picking out which photos and what wings to use.

He loved them. I loved them. They were not what I had envisioned but they did seem to capture his mischievous side.

I was very happy. I do not photograph my own kids enough and I know I will regret that.

Last week I sat at lunch with my friend. I asked, "Did you see the Imp photos of Flynn? I......."

My lunch companion did not even let me finish.

"No"

"Oh well I posted them...."

"No I mean no I refuse to even look at them. That is the stupidest thing I have ever seen. Why would you even bother."

At this point I can tell you my mouth was hanging open in surprise and I was at a loss for words.

Not only surprised, I was a little hurt.

Yes they weren't your typical stand here and pose photos. Yes he wanted wings that some might consider a "girly" thing, but I really felt that if you looked at them you saw my son's personality and I love my son's crazy personality.

I feel bad that I did not have a response back.

I am still not sure what I would of said.

If I had a time machine or another chance that this is said again, what should I say?

What is a well mannered, educational response that will make another personal change their mind with feeling attacked or wrong?

Flynn Imp-8 copy Flynn Imp-5 copy Flynn Imp-6 copy