I painted one rose, and I thought "Well it's OK, sort of.".
I painted a second rose, and thought "Hmm - it's not very convincing.".
I painted a third one, and I thought "I'm in trouble!".
I gave Susan the mirror - and asked her opinion. "Speak freely." I said - by which, obviously, I meant "Tell me what I want to hear."
"Hmm - looks a bit like a ping-pong bat.", she said.
I took the mirror away and tried sulking for a bit.
Then , holding my tongue at just the right angle, and trying extra hard, I did a fourth rose. It looked much better. After some desperate remedial brush work and artistic panel beating, the earlier ones started to look more like roses (and less like ping-pong bats) - and things started to get better.
From there on, we were on a roll - and it was more like a production line.
Hell - I even started talking to Susan again!
(Actually I lie. We did have some difficulty with those first three roses - but "Susan the canvas" was very supportive and nursed my bruised ego through the process with endless patience, in what turned out to be a much longer than expected paint session.)
The photo shoot, (which only involved lying on a cold concrete floor, on a freezing cold night, with the racket of hail beating on the roof), must have been easy after that?