The call came Tuesday from one of my favorite feature writers at the local daily. A fellow repat was organizing a homecoming day for people to come back to Buffalo. The writer wanted some additional background for the story.
I chatted away about our homecoming as I buried through my desk looking for a particular org chart (at this point in a major project, if my desk was a hurricane, it would be category five).
No big deal. I love Buffalo. I was a reporter. I am a PR person.
She called back on Wednesday asking to set up a photographer for the next day. Otherwise distracted, I looked at my calendar and gave her the lunchtime hole.
Even as I got dressed yesterday morning it was for the CEO meeting in the afternoon and not the lunchtime appointment. Just another line in the Daytimer... not.
As I was driving to back to the apartment to meet the photographer it hit me.
I take the pictures. I take hundreds, even thousands of pictures every year. I put the best in scrapbooks, carefully coordinated and arranged. I make copies and send them to relatives. I email pictures and post them online.
I do NOT pose for pictures.
Even with the new smile Charlie bought we a few years ago for the price of a mid-line Jaguar, I do not stand on this side of the lens unless I am surrounded by family or friends with whom I want to memorialize myself. Even at that, the result is scattered. The pictures of me with the puppy on her first day home could be used as the "before" shots in any variety of personal improvement campaigns.
But this would be hit and run, right?
I recognized the photographer's name immediately as one of the best on the paper with a national magazine reputation. This would be quick and painless, I tried to tell myself, even as he set up a light stand in my living room.
The first rule of fat girl camouflage is "surround yourself." I offered my husband, the dog and several unaware neighbors to "fill in" the shot.
No, this set up would be right up my nostrils with the "pick up your chin and fix your eyes on some distant-nonexistent star on the far right horizon." I had done this to so many people without acknowleging my own cruelty. This was payback in spades.
The next set was with Charlie in the kitchen. I chattered like a magpie throughout the process, hoping perhaps I could drive the photographer away with excessive inanity.
But he was one intrepid guy. For the outside shots Charlie and I walked towards him holding hands and smiling and stood together with our shoulders just so on Main St... then some shots from a shady spot across the street with our building behind just me.
Passers-by pointed, stopped and stared. It turns out I can read lips from a distance, at least "What the big deal about HER?"
I'd like to say I had an ephiphany and will be infinitely kinder, more patient and considerate with the family and friends I am forever posing to catch the right light -- but I'm frankly not that nice.
I will, however, pay more attention to what I commit myself to during "routine" phone calls.



Copyright 2006 Judi Griggs