THE MONEY SHOT

It’s not easy being a blogger. Something mildly colourful happens and you’re all OMG I HAVE TO BLOG THIS. You whip out your camera (phone) and you hope that one picture later, you’ll have the perfect picture to pimp and prime in one or other of your many photo-editing apps, so it’s 97% better looking than it was, then you can whack it on the blog along with a string of words and call yourself retired for another week.

Case in point, my sister and I treated ourselves to a salon swing-by last week. She had a pedi, I had a mani.

Orange (is the new black) for my sis, neon pink Gelish for me, with a silver sparkle added to just the nail of the ring finger, which, my young and hip nail technician assured me, is what all the cool kids are doing these days.

My sister gifted me this sparkling sentence: ‘I’m well gelish of your nails.’ Said with a wink and a nudge, as one does when one knows one is delivering comedy gold.

Neon pink firmly emblazoned upon my nails, I went about blinding people on the streets with my jazz hands. I found myself answering questions from shop assistants with a gentle tap of my nails upon my chin in the vain hope they’d compliment me. ‘Do you want a bag?’ was met with: ‘Um…do I want a bag? Hmm… Let me think…’ Tap tap tap… await flattery.

We met up with Mother and I ran in for a hug, nails first, flapping them in her face in demand of affirmation that yes, my nails were hot pink and yes, she loved them. (She confirmed the former and dispelled the latter. Hot pink does not impress my mother.)

Someone out there would love me. It was time to get that money shot.

Alas, it’s really fricking hard to get a decent picture of your own hand. So here’s a behind the scenes stream of consciousness – this is what really happens all those times you just see one perfect picture.

Just gingerly flopped my hand onto my leg here. Damn it! Hot pink not showing up as hot enough. Neon not given justice in this light.

Also – veiny hands. Abort.

NEON PINK! But stubby fingers. Also – hello jaundice.

Focus pulled to the tiny lines on my hands and not the sharpness of the pinkness of the nails. I can do better. (I can’t. I can just do more.)

Lob my hand onto Mum’s arm. She’s wearing white so that’ll really offset the neon pink.

Not satisfied. Don’t like it. Stupid hand.

We arrive at a pub that has black pansies in the garden. Black pansies! Maybe if I point at a black flower with my hot pink nail, the gods of VSCOcam will work their magic with the sub-standard, fuzzy picture I bosh out.

I point and shoot.

No.

Bottle of prosecco ordered. How about if I fawn the bottle? Look at my hot pink nails now!

Shit. Ashtray in the background.

Off-camera, I wrap my delicate, definitely skinny and graceful hand around the neck of the bottle and in my actual eyes, it looks really good. ‘Grab the camera!’ I say to my sister, as she lines up the picture.

Immediately my hand goes weird and wrinkly.

We take approx thirty six pictures of the same. Hand continues to act weirdly. Sister comments on how my hand seems to have stage fright. Upon being placed in front of a camera, it’s trying too hard to hand-smile and it’s gone hand-mental.

Ok, a nice relaxed, whoops-you-took-our-picture picture of my sister and I drinking our fizz.

Neon pink nails pretty much not in the shot. Plus, I’m pretty drunk and I’ve got no make-up on – not even Instagram can save this monstrosity. Would rather the world did not see this face, but I’m sacrificing the illusion of good looks, all in the pursuit of pinkness.

Wrote ‘Think Pink’ over a previously discarded photo of stupid, wrinkly, fat hand wrapped around the prosecco bottle. Think pink! That’ll impress them!

Giving up, I concentrate on drinking my prosecco. But wait! Just wrapping my hand around the glass looks awesome. I bosh out a few hand-selfies (handfies?). It’s not working. My hand has problems. It can’t hold a glass of fizz if there’s a camera looking.

Mum points helpfully at my weird hand.

If my hand was a diva it would have walked off this shoot hours ago.

Sister had her feet-nails polished. I have a winning idea of shoving my hand onto her foot for a picture. It does neither of us any favours.

Clutching at straws, I try cradling my thumb in the other hand. Maximum pinkness, but looks a bit like I’ve had my thumb cut off and I’m just looking after it while someone gets some ice.

Sister gets out her e-cigarette. Maybe this will be the answer to my problem! The ashtray from earlier just so happened to have some definitely arty ash and a bit of an old cigar in it. I can just imagine Instagram making that look shit-hot, so I nonchalantly hover the e-cigarette next to the ashtray.

E-cigarettes don’t need ashtrays you idiot! Where’s your authenticity!

I smoke the e-cigarette. I can’t pull this off. I look like I’ve broken my hand. Even the cat on my t-shirt is smoking with more credence than I.

Mission not accomplished. I got a neon pink manicure. It looks really good. Picture not available at time of going to press.