Another one bites the dust

We had another photo shoot today. We number photo shoots, for our own records, so this is shoot number 25. The first year we did these I believe we did 3, then the following year 5, then the following year 7, then last year 9. That makes this our 5th year doing these, and we have 11 scheduled for this year. Eleven. More than any year before. Ugh. And if I pull this off, how much do you want to bet next year is 12?

The photo shoots, obviously, take a lot out of the team of five assigned. We rotate the roles for each shoot out, and as the shoot planner and coordinator, hiring person for the models, and Art Director, I’m the only one who is assigned to each shoot consistently. The shoot prep starts weeks before with the confirmation and re-confirmation of models and photographer, and props, and storyboarding of scenarios. The actual shoot, for me, begins the night before with shopping for final props, and food for the next day. The day starts at 6, when I get into work early to help gather the supplies for the shoot. I collect lunch for the day, and then stop on the way to the shoot to pick up the coffee and donuts. Thank heaven for Box O’ Joe. We get to the shoot at 8:30 and the rest of the team is typically there as I arrive, or arrive shortly thereafter. We unload and set up in about 15 minutes, and are usually ready by the time the first models arrive at about 8:45. And we start shooting images promptly at 9. Our first session, with about 4-6 models, goes from 9 to 12, and the second session from about 12:30 to 4:00, with the half hour in between provided as lunch for both sets of models, the team and the photographer and his assistant. By 4:00 each shoot day, I sense everyone is pretty exhausted. I know I am.

This shoot was particularly intense in that it featured parents and young kids. All the kids were aged 5 to 7 years old, with one parent each. This is arranged so that we can get realistic affection between parent and child, something that, with kids, it can be difficult and to some degree feels a bit wrong to expect from strangers. Adults can make the choice for false, forced, performed affection, but with little kids, who haven’t yet learned to “fake it” (though plenty know how to ham it up) it’s easier, and I think better, to get real emotion with real connection.

So the thing about this shoot that sort of left me a bit more exhausted than usual is the high energy level that kids require. The way this shoot worked was that I asked the kids each to mirror me. Sometimes I was directly behind the photographer’s head, so when they looked at me they were looking at the camera, sometimes off to the side when looking in that direction was more appropriate. They mimicked whatever position, expression, emotion I portrayed for them. See, what that requires is an adult who's willing to jump around, look ridiculous and silly in front of his colleagues, and just generally have fun with kids in order to get the solid gold shots that captured exactly what we needed to capture. Of course, I’m the first to volunteer. I thought of adding the line "willing to act silly" to my resume, but thought better of it.

I don’t know why I’m so staid most of my day, so introspective about 90% of my time, and then can seem to make such a complete personality change. It feels like this me at the shoots is a throwback to a me I used to be, a me that is so uninhibited and so willing-no, so anxious, to get out there and act silly without thought to consequence. But I enjoy the hell out of it.

My heart goes out to teachers. When I teach (I’ve taught various Saturday school programs through the years, the most recent last year) it’s usually just for three or four hours at a time. The way I teach is highly animated and involves a lot of jumping around, like I did at the shoot today. By the end, I feel like I’ve run a marathon, but I know I’ve had, and the kids have had, a lot of fun. I’ve also done something similar for each of my kids birthday parties, in one doing a drawing class, and in another providing large scale caricatures of each kid as a super hero of their own design, with their own unique powers. Again, draining, but fun.

Anyway, an interesting thing happened at todays shoot. Two of the kids shared a mother whom I had to convince to model for us. She has one older daughter who turned pro model after her first shoot with us, and now gets 2 to 3 jobs a month. She was a central model for TJ Max’s in-store Christmas imagery. (Maybe you saw it if you shop there-she was a girl in the middle of a winter wonderland, blown up to larger than-life, and looking up at snow falling down on her.) So she’s had a lot of experience around models, but had never been one herself. I talked her into modeling because her two kids were so perfect, and again I wanted them with a real connection to a parent. She was nervous at first, so, though typically I would have a parent start modeling to show the kids how to do it, in her case I tried the opposite. Her two kids each went first, and she relaxed as she saw what we needed. But again, the way I work with kids is I act silly, crack jokes, and ask them to mirror me. I’ve never done that with adults.

And when it was her turn, she wanted me to. “Just do what you were doing for my kids,” she said, as she looked to mirror my moves the same way they had. So suddenly, I’m dealing with an attractive adult woman my age, really in great shape for a mom of three kids, and I’m asking her to mirror me. Why was it so weird?, I keep asking myself. Maybe it’s that the idea of asking a kid to act like me puts me in the role of a kid, and I can be comfortable with that, but being asked to be an adult woman was a bit much? What's my role in that? Maybe I felt self conscious because she was good looking, and I had to overcome my own machismo to allow myself to be willing to look feminine, and maybe funny, to get her to feel comfortable? And maybe my own machismo isn't really fond of being overcome. (Picture a 6'1" black man with a beard with a hand on his hip, leaning back to look coy with his lips pursed. You picture it, because I can't. Yikes. Thank goodness there were no real mirrors there. And no video cameras for America's Funniest...) Maybe I was tired. I don’t know. But it was odd for a bit there, until I myself loosened up and was thereby able to let her do the same.

So, another one down. And with that I start planning my next shoot on March 16th, with one a month after that until the end of the year. And I find the ones I’m really looking forward to are the ones with little kids.

And maybe cute moms.