Any photographer will tell you that fashion shoots are an art in themselves. You have to have the right light, the right setting, the right idea, and most importantly, the right models. The best models require very little direction, they’re naturals. You get them in front of the camera and they know exactly what to do - when to look excited, when to look sad. They know how to muster the energy that makes a good picture a great one.

But what you do when you have four models? And more importantly, what do you do when you have four models all under the age of three? Let me tell you, it’s like herding cats.

On the front of Thursday’s Get Out section you’ll find a photo illustration of four toddlers walking across a painting intended to look like the iconic photo of The Beatles walking across Abbey Road. The images is what we call a photo illustration, meaning that rather than a simple, straightforward, news photograph it has been digitally manipulated to express an idea. In this case the image is a combination of several photographs and a drawing.

A fair amount of planning goes into creating a photo illustration. In this instance we had to figure out how to best illustrate a story about musical groups and programs dedicated to children.

The initial idea started with a conversation between our features picture editor Lynden Steele and artist Cara DeMichele. The idea was to have a photograph four children walking across the street, which would symbolize Abbey Road. As the conversation evolved, the idea transformed into one of combining photos of children into a scene of Abbey Road painted by DeMichele.

Next we had to find the children. Luckily Steele has a 2-year-old son, Jack, who attends daycare at the Downtown Children’s Center in St. Louis. Steele approached the daycare to ask from permission, explained the idea and recruited volunteers.

The morning of the shoot we started with Jack, Steele’s son. Giving directions to any model is a task in itself, however explaining to a toddler that you need them to walk, slowly, in a straight line from one end of a giant white piece of paper to the other requires creativity, to say the least. It took several tries. At first most of the kids would run, some would lay down, others would stand, frozen at the far end of the background staring at the middle as if it was covered in hot coals, refusing to move.

I don’t have any children so I’m clueless about all the little tricks associated with getting kids to do what you want. What do you do when one just sits down in the middle of the floor and answers a firm “no” with every request you give? How do you explain that the faster you do what we ask the sooner you’ll get to go outside and play? I was clueless about all of this … however Steele saved the day. He laughed, joked, tickled and coaxed, at one point he even held one of the kids upside down which made for some interesting photos.

As for the children, they would interpret directions in interesting and often hilarious ways. When we asked them to go slow they would hardly move. When we asked them to hug they tackled each other. At one point an adult had to walk in front of all the children coaxing them each step of the way. However, in the end, with a little encouragement, each child walked across allowing me to get the photos.

In the final product the children look like they are walking together, but in reality, they’re individual photos. For the last step in this process, designer Jason Lewton incorporates the photos and painting together on the page. He has the tedious task of removing the white background from each of the photos and then seamlessly transferring them to the painting.