Getting some friends to dress up as a Viking family actually proved relatively simple.
A friend from school asked me, “Would you mind dog sitting for a week in September?”
“Only if you dress up as a Viking for me.”
And voila, our photo shoot was organised!
Hilda, her husband Erik, and their children Freya and Torsten (not their real names) spent a Saturday afternoon committing (as Torsten said) “social suicide” – dressing up as Vikings and posing for me while I took their photographs at the local park. While all the dog walkers passed by, they gazed pensively into the distance, spun around to every side, and gave me their best ‘angry Viking’ looks.
Classic Viking family portrait, gazing towards far off lands
The best “angry Viking” poses
We applied some temporary tattoos to get the party started, and piled into two cars to head for a shady spot near the beach I had scouted earlier. We rifled through my box of artefacts so everyone could have props for the photos. Clearly weapons were a favourite, and the rubber chicken received some puzzled expressions.
We only had a limited time of what photographers like to call ‘the golden hour’, so it was a blizzard of photos, guided by my sister’s very precise checklist. She had also given me some important advice, but the only part of which I could remember was “If they look awkward, get them to touch their hair – it works!” So with my poor memory skills, so many objects, the time pressure, and the dog running rampant, the checklist got left on the grass, and I felt compelled to improvise. Everyone got into it, and by the end, we even managed some hilarious Viking family shots, including one we like to call “What’s for dinner?” The rubber chicken got its moment in the sun!
“What’s for dinner?” Viking edition
