Dad steps into the spotlight for a maternity shoot — and the results are just comedy gold
Maternity shoots are a thing now, and a father-of-two decided to go a step further and did a complete "man-terity" shoot! Francisco Pérez, better known as Paco among his friends, was more than happy to oblige when his photographer friend, Martyn Wilkes, approached him with the idea of doing a parody "pregnancy" shoot. "I had been recently doing lots of maternity work, and I wanted to do something different to break things up and have a bit of fun," Wilkes told Huffington Post.
"I have known Paco for four or five years and admittedly often jested about his rather large stomach, which resembled a pregnant mother." Wilkes had a complete vision in mind, starting from the location to even the props and the dad was more than happy to execute it to perfection. His sincerity towards playing the role of an expectant father was beyond commendable. For the photoshoot, Paco gracefully posed amidst a field of flowers dressed in a blue sarong, and a flower crown. He even had a bit of fabric draped across his chest in a bid to appear modest and complete the look!
He then had a ring of flowers painted on his round belly, along with the name "Noelia." Wilkes, who is a father of two himself, revealed the rather entertaining story behind the name writen across his friend's stomach. According to the photographer, the story involves Paco's 27-year-old daughter, Natalia. It reportedly dates all the way back to when Natalia was born and his wife sent him to officially register her under the name they'd agreed upon: Noelia. However he go the the office inebriated as he had downed a few too many beers, so when he scribbled the name on the official forms, his drunken penmanship was misread as Natalia and the name stuck. Paco, who also has an older daughter named Virginia, is said to have wanted to feature the name "Noelia" in his photoshoot to make up for the time he messed up his younger daughter's originally intended name in her official records all those years ago.
Although the #pregnantpaco shoot took place back in 2016, the photos of the father lovingly caressing his belly seem to pop up on social media every now and then. The best part is that it contnues to put a smile on people's face, even after all these years, and this is exactly what Wilkes was hoping for. Sure, he did hope that the photoshoot would create good publicity for his work, and it has, but "the main thing I was looking for was to make people laugh," the photographer explained.
Wilkes posted the photos of #pregnantpaco on his Facebook page with an equally hilarious backstory. "The most precious thing in this life is to give life, to pass on our beauty...to experience the most amazing gift given to us by mother nature. Paco is expecting a beautiful baby girl called Noelia, with only 5 weeks left to go, his dream of becoming a Father is finally coming true," he captioned the album titled "Waiting for Noelia..."
Did it bring a smile to your face?