The kid wasn’t so bad. Him I could have worked with. He at least followed the directions I gave him with his body, except to stop crying. No matter how I set up the shot, however, mama bear would rush over and rearrange how I positioned her son, or turn his plastic sword a different direction than how I needed it.
Thankfully I’d had more than my share of working with entitled rich people who thought they knew better than anyone else about everything. I knew to simply let her have her way, no matter if it made the process more painful for me and her son. She wanted her kid’s four-year-old picture to be of him on the beach, dressed as a knight, getting ready to slay a sea monster. If the sword were genuine, there might have been actual slayage on the rocky coast.
I needed the money.
I waited until even Mama was looking frazzled, then gave her my best, exaggeratedly gay gasp and turned pleading eyes on her. “Oh, Ms. Wells, I left the diffuser lens in my car. I hate to ask, but if I gave you the keys, would you mind getting it? I don’t want to leave and miss this perfect lighting.”
Ms. Wells looked at her crying son and hesitated, then rushed over and rearranged the pebbles at his feet. Standing once more, she placed her hands on her hips and stared at the scenery, then looked back at me. “Okay. Well, I think things should be good until I’m back. I hate to leave you when you might not know how I want it to look.” She headed back to me and held out her hand for the keys. “I’ll be quick. Is the lens in the glove compartment?”
Another apologetic smile. “You know, I’m not sure. It should be in my bag, but it isn’t. It must have fallen out. Hopefully it didn’t get scratched if it rolled under a seat.”
She took the keys and, after a final glance at her son, headed over the embankment that led to where we’d parked our cars.
Perfect. The walk was a good four minutes each way, and she’d probably spend another four minutes or so looking for the diffuser lens. Gave me a full twelve minutes, maybe more, to get the shot. All I needed.
I rushed over to the kid and knelt in front of him. He seemed to have just noticed his mother had vanished and looked on the verge of a fresh fit. “It’s okay, Reggie. Mommy is coming right back. She needed to get something to help make the pictures better.”
His face continued to get redder, and his bottom lip trembled.
“Do you know what I’m going to do this afternoon?”
A fat tear rolled down his cheek, and he shook his head.
“I’m going to get a dog. That way my niece will have a friend when she comes and stays with me.”
Reggie’s eyes widened, his shaky voice full of wonder. “A puppy?”
Hell no, not a puppy. That was the last thing I needed. “Yeah. A cute little puppy.”
He started telling me about his guinea pig, Pistachio.
Within a minute, the tears stopped. Within three, Reggie was laughing. Within five, I had the shot.
We had maybe six minutes to spare, so we looked for crabs wandering around the small pools on the shore of the beach. I got another shot.
Ms. Wells showed up, out of breath and frazzled. “I’m so sorry. I couldn’t find it. I looked everywhere.”
I gaped at her. “Really? Where in the world could it have gone? I swear I remember….” I let my voice trail off, and I looked down at my camera, then gave a mighty eye roll. “Oh, for crying out loud.” I held the camera out to her. “It’s already on. I guess I should have stopped to get some coffee on the way out. Would have turned on my brain. I’m so sorry I made you take that trek.”
“Oh.” She glared at the camera. “Well, that’s fine, I suppose. That means all the pictures you’ve already taken had the right filter, so that’s good.” She headed over to Reggie, who was poking a stick into a tide pool. “Let me get Reggie situated, and we’ll start again.”
“Actually—” I hit a few buttons until I was back at my favorite frame, then held the camera out to her once more so she could see the screen. “—I took a few pictures while we were waiting. We got the one you’re looking for. Reggie did a great job.”
She narrowed her eyes and leaned closer to the camera. “Hmmm. It does look good. His cheeks are so splotchy, though, all that crying.”
“Oh, that’s not a big deal. I can fix that in a minute. He’ll look great.”
Ms. Wells wasn’t convinced. “I don’t know if I want any of that done. I want it to look natural.”
I tried to keep my eyes from bugging out at her. I think I succeeded. “You do know that I have to digitally put in the sea monster, right?”
“Well, of course.”
I started to say something, then stopped. I had no idea what to say to that.
“Just a few more pictures, then?”
“Sure.” I reminded myself how much I was charging for this photo shoot. “Anything you want.”
