Rising high school senior Evan Dennison's mom, Heather Waters, bought a "really, really large" picture frame and has it waiting to hang in their living room. All she needs now is the perfect senior portrait of her 17-year-old to go into it.
Waters recently arranged for a family member, professional photographer Tiffany Clark, to take Evan's photos while she was visiting their hometown of Portage, Indiana. Clark and Evan left for the shoot with a backpack filled with clothes handpicked by his mom, including a traditional button-down shirt and pants.
But Evan had another vision. "I knew exactly what I was doing," he told TODAY Parents.
When they reached a field where Clark planned to stage the shoot, she couldn't get Evan to change into the clothes his mother sent with him. Instead, he pulled a bathrobe from the bottom of his backpack.
"Why are you doing this to me? PLEASE just wear the clothes your mom sent," Clark pleaded.
"I'm going to be a LEGEND," Evan replied.
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After trying to convince him to wear the intended outfit, Clark finally gave up. She now has 47 beautiful images of Evan, robed, in a field.
Evan was not wrong. After Clark posted the resulting photos on her professional Facebook page — complete with captions revealing what she said to Evan to prompt his poses and expressions — the shoot went viral, much to Evan's delight. It was shared on Facebook almost 100,000 times after just a few days.
Clark said these photos are a true reflection of her young cousin's personality. "Evan is everything you'd ever want to see in the coolest stand-up comedian dude ever, so this is totally normal," she told TODAY Parents.
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