After Life

15

The gentle afternoon breeze pulled some of my hair from the braided plait down my back, causing it to flow across my face. I pushed in back in annoyance as I crossed my arms over myself again, my hand clutching the strap of my camera.  Harry walked quietly beside me, his hands as always, deep in his pockets, his head down. He hadn't said much since we ventured outside, and I had a feeling he was wondering what I was about to get him in to.

I realized, albeit too late, that the studio was the worst possible place to start this little endeavor of ours. For someone like Harry, someone who hated his picture taken to the point of anger and exasperation, putting them directly into such a blatant setting was admittedly one of the stupidest fucking things I had done in years. Of course I wasn't going to get what I needed from him when he was basically shitting a sideways brick. He looked uncomfortable, tense and anxious in every picture. Only one was in any ways useable, and that was mainly because his eyes were down.

None of the images were useable in my assignment, except for the one by the window. The one image I had taken that was exactly what I had wanted, was taken simply without his knowledge. I left him to his thoughts, allowing him to relax and just be. This was what I was going to have to do to get what I needed from him. And that wasn't going to happen in a stuffy studio surrounded by cameras and lighting.

I'm not saying his pictures weren't good. They were. For some reason, despite his annoyance and obvious distaste for the setting, he was still incredibly photogenic. He had a way of portraying to the camera emotion and feeling, his eyes almost hypnotic. Unfortunately, the feelings and emotions he was portraying were not secretive and mysterious. They were irritated and uncomfortable.

So here we were, walking side by side down the streets of New York. Where we were going, exactly, I had yet to actually plan out. But I knew my first step was to get him out of that studio and then see what happened.

 I knew I only needed a handful of useable images to submit as my preliminary draft for my project. Some I may be able to use again in the actual exhibit, if they were powerful enough. Harry knew this was the first of at least three photo sessions we were going to have to do for this assignment, his distaste for it evident with an annoyed tisk the moment I told him. But he didn't refuse, and he didn't try and pull back. So at least we had made some progress, albeit small.

Once in a while I would glance over to Harry, his eyes down to the sidewalk, his brown curls tickling his face. His expression was thoughtful, deep and lost, the exact one I needed to get on film for more than two freaking pictures. But how did you stop him in the middle of the street and take his picture without him getting angry or his facial expression immediately changing?

I realized during our little walk that the majority of this enterprise was going to have to be done in a stealthy and covert op manner. Any time he was forced to acknowledge the camera, his expression immediately hardened. He became guarded and tense, and lost all form of softness and subtly that was required for this type of a topic. Secrets were our deepest and darkest, those things we hid within ourselves. In my mind, the expression that went along with that was a gentle, far away, mysterious one. Not one that looked like the subject wanted to punch the photographer.

I had figured out what it was I needed from him. I had figured out the best way to achieve it. Now all I had to figure out was how to actually get it from him without him storming off.