It's a Dad's Life:Back in my schooldays I used to visit a friend's house and be struck by the grandeur of the family portrait (in pastel watercolours) glaring down as you entered through the front door. His dad, a builder, had constructed this faux-Georgian pile with a lobby the width of Croke Park, presided over by a locally-drawn homage to himself and his brood. I thought it was the height of chic, something the Windsors would have been proud of. You may scoff, but remember I was 15.
For some reason, that portrait has been on my mind recently. Maybe it's because every second house I'm in these days seems to be wallpapered with beaming shots of happy mums, dads and monsters, all caught, seemingly unawares, in positions of mutual admiration. Frankly, it all seems rather unnatural, but I believe if we can produce a photo like that, maybe we too can live the dream.
I'm mulling this over as I park the car in Clontarf. I lock the door, look left and directly across the road is a shop, The Portrait Studio, with a large colour shot of a girl in her Communion dress in the window. The caption for the picture printed boldly beside her is, "Doesn't your princess deserve the best?" Someone is sending me signals.
Thirty minutes later, I have a session booked for the whole family the following Saturday. The deciding factor in my unusually prompt action (by my procrastinating standards) is an odd one, but I feel compelled to reveal it.
The proprietor's name is Mark Nixon and he has remarkable teeth. For an Irish person, they are impeccable, like something out of a Sweet Valley High yearbook, and this, in a photographer, reassures me in some basic way. Like the best photographer will have the best smile.
My family, of course, are nonplussed. We don't, as a rule, place a whole lot of store in photos. Every six months or so we clear up the few disposable cameras lying round the house and have them developed to see what forgotten secrets they may contain. Neither the Missus or I know an under- from an over-exposure, but that is why I am determined we go posh, and make at least one effort to look urban-suave for the sake of posterity. My fear is that formal portraits aren't suave at all, that they might actually be über-naff, but the problem is I am nowhere near cutting-edge enough to know the difference. There's mainly black and navy in my wardrobe; I like things safe.
The shoot itself goes smoothly. We parents make our variety of comedy, double-chin, cross-eyed faces that appear every time a camera is in the vicinity. But Mark is good with the kids and even banishes us to a corner of the studio at one stage so he can work with them without parental interference. It always amazes me how they will behave impeccably with random adults, while maintaining a stoic determination to defy us on every issue. Here they come across as cute and accommodating. With their matching dresses and washed-that-very-day hair they could be mistaken for the type of kids you'd want to swap with your own.
Five days later, the Missus and I are back for a "viewing". It's at this stage you're made feel special. We are settled with a coffee and then shown a movie of, as Davina McCall would say, our best bits - a slideshow with Tom Waits gently crooning Picture In A Framein the background.
I'm sold. Somehow we have been made to look happy, relaxed and absolutely gorgeous; a miracle of biblical proportions. The pictures catch us enjoying each other. It can't be naff to look this good. Dammit, we can only be cool. Now the dream will be mine.
We choose a selection to frame, all natural and beaming and full of mutual admiration. These are as good as any I've seen, if I can just train the family to match the images we'll be the embodiment of perfection.
