Photo Shoot

“I like this one” Dee said; “You look like a realtor.”

“You mean I look professional, trustworthy, conscientious…?”

“Well sort of”, she replied.

My friend is a photographer and he posts photos on line to promote his new business. I saw one that made my heart stop. Many of his do but this one caught me.

I only know the subject peripherally. He’s a business man and a good one, however, I’ve never seen the twinkle, that I’m sure his family and friends know well, in real life or on camera before. A handsome, smiling man in a suit made me grin.

Maybe the photographer could capture something in me that few people have ever seen or noticed before:

Professionalism, trustworthiness, compassion, patience, forgiveness, or understanding. Are those looks that can be captured?

Dee said she can always tell when I think someone is full of sh*t because one eye gets funny.

“Quit smirking” means Mom knows what I was thinking.

Honeybun leaves the room quietly when I get a certain look.

I’m not sure what those looks look like.

I should have brushed my hair.

I should have put on makeup.

I should have made Dee come with me. She could have of given instructions: “Look happy, sad, mad, irritated, scared, unsure, confident.”

I should have made all of those faces so I could see what others see.

Instead I laughed at the camera because I had no choice. I laughed at me because I’m funny. Here I am at a photo shoot pretending I know why I’m here.

“Can I put your picture on my website?”, my friend asked after.

“Only if I look really good. Not that I’m vain but… I don’t want people to think I think I should be getting my picture taken…I mean it may seem I’m being …ah…whatever.”

“Do you want to check it out first?”, he asked kindly.

“Yeah, that would be good.”

The next day my grandmother and I looked through old knitting books.

“I had a beautiful Norwegian sweater like this once. Such intricacies in the patterns” she mused.

“Look at this one! Get a load of the model!” I said somewhat unkindly.

“Speaking of which let me show you the photos from the shoot”

“Oh, lovely!”, she said while looking at the file.

I smiled to myself.

“Look at the colors!”

I smiled again. Maybe she could see that one of my eyes is more green than blue.

“It looks like a difficult pattern.”

Wait? What?

She assumed we were still discussing knitting patterns and was referring to the shirt I was wearing.

Now that I think about it, I never really noticed that before. It’s a nice shirt. It would make a great sweater.