Portrait of a 13 Year Old

Nic is a typical 13 year old good looking boy. He is my wife’s cousin. He loves Manchester United, he is in the basketball school team, he likes to watch TV and goes on online social network.

He came to my house one night to watch his favourite team, Manchester United, played against Bolton. He was in his normal T-shirts. On the same night, I had a wedding dinner to attend.

When I came home, I saw him sitting in my living room watching the game. I was thinking if I can make him look more mature than his age, so I casually asked him “Hey, fancy a quick portrait shoot?”

“…errr…. Yes, but I don’t have a proper shirt,” he replied.

I went to my room, opened my wardrobe, took out a cufflink shirt and passed it to him. My shirt fits him! (Yeah, i am not that big size).

I then went to my other room to get an unit of the Nikon SB900 flash gun, a lightstand, my favourite portrait 105mm f/2 DC lens, and mounted it on the camera body which has a Nikon SU800 attached to it.

I needed a backdrop, but I was too lazy to pull out my white backdrop, so I told him to stand infront of the white wall in the house. I quickly setup the flash and its position.

He wasn’t natural infront of camera. I guess it was because this was his MAIDEN portrait session. So, to loosen him up a bit, i told him “Hey, imagine I am your basketball opponent and this is the final game! You don’t want to be too friendly to me coz I might snatch the trophy away from you…”

He posed according to the scenario I painted to him… and I pressed the shutter release.