Over the years I’d learned that the children needed to be in a good mood, or the photos would fail. I’d come up with ways to save unsuccessful parties and had become particularly adept at party tricks, such as balloon animals and face painting. I always came equipped with a dual-action hand pump, balloons, face paint, brushes, stencils. Once in a while I chose to pull out some of my supplies. Only when I sensed a party going off the rails. Surprisingly, even so-called sophisticated children, as old as thirteen, found such things delightful. Balloons especially. They usually elicited gestures and facial expressions that suggested innocence and joy. In New York City, many children lost that early on. Jaded children made very poor photo subjects. Balloons gave me the best chance of capturing something that looked like happiness.

Natalie said yes to the balloon animals. Responding to her friends’ requests, I made a unicorn, a giraffe, a cougar, a castle, a yacht, and a helicopter.

The balloons worked. I got the shots of Natalie and her friends that I needed—faces illuminated, energized, in medias res. Even the most constrained and constraining parents craved images of their children diving headfirst into the world without fear or inhibitions, living, experiencing. What they, themselves, had wanted to do but couldn’t. Most of the time my raw material turned out well. And if all else failed, of course I could photoshop.

Toward the end of the party, Fritz gathered the girls around the dining table and Amelia brought out a large birthday cake, shaped and decorated like a cello and bow. Eyes on her daughter, Amelia beamed as she placed the cake in front of Natalie and knelt on the floor next to her daughter’s chair. Amelia’s posture, her tilted head, her soft smile, were intended to convey extreme devotion to her daughter. Not that I considered her disingenuous. But I gathered that loving her daughter in front of witnesses helped cement a necessary self-image.

The assembled girls sang to Natalie, crowding in to get a better look at the cake. And then Natalie blew out the candles. These are the most important shots: the cake, the song, blowing out the candles. If you miss them, there is no way to make up for it. They aren’t going to happen twice. No other moments of the party come close to those in magnitude and weight.

Ideally, I need to capture both parents with their child when the cake is presented. The parents rarely acknowledge it, but they want to see themselves as much as they want to see their children. They want to see themselves being good parents. They want proof. That is what I provide.

Fritz sliced the cake and handed it out to the little she-wolves. Then, like clockwork, the parents showed up and most of the children disappeared within ten minutes, except for a few stragglers.