Kids want to be mermaids, too!

Probably more than adults!

A few weeks before everything shut down, we bought mermaid tails for kids. A lot of the inquiries I received that I had to turn down were about shoots for children, or mother/child shoots. I wanted to do them, of course, but it's not like I could. These adult mermaid tails...spoiler alert...are for adults. I never would have figured that out on my own, but it's true. Children are not adult sized (unless they are my son. He is 13 and is taller than me, and at 5'9 I'm no height slouch), so I just couldn't accommodate the many requests for child shoots that I got. Our options were to turn away an entire age demographic, or to buy tails to fit children (or small adults, whom I never meant to exclude, but I'll save discrimination in the mer-industry for either another post, or my personal blog). So we bought tails.

The shut down really messed with our plans, as it did for everyone. We had to sit on our hands until we felt alright doing shoots again. We've done three now, and kids LOVE these tails. I know kids love mermaids, I am not surprised that they have such a blast putting the tails on and splashing in the water, but I am surprised that the kids appreciate it more than adults. I thought for sure that adults would appreciate the time to live a childhood fantasy far more than kids, because children wouldn't have a lifetime of playing mermaid in the pool and learning to swim with your legs held tight together in any given body of water like my adult peers would. And to be sure, adults DO relish the opportunity to be merfolk, but kids? THEY GO APESHIT. I have yet to do an adult mershoot where random children aren't excitedly yelling at my clients/models, and it makes their day when they get waved at by a mermaid. It's my favorite.

Getting to make that dream come true for kids has its challenges. Children are NOTORIOUS for their lack of desire to follow directions, particularly when they are excited. Children are far more difficult to direct because they are so enthusiastic, but that also has its own joy for me as a photographer. I'm excited to get more merkid shoots under my belt!