The Art of Living

[13] I'm Fine

Freddie got up and shooed Roger off the blanket so he could sit next to Ellie and look at the pictures she had taken again. "There are really good. I like this one a lot. You can try to take one of me like this, okay? I'm going to have some really nice clothes on, so you can get a lot out of that."

"That actually sounds like fun, yeah." Ellie smiled and nodded. "Do you know anything about the stage area? Do I need a tele lens or more a wide angle lens? I have a couple of camera bodies so I can definitely do quick changes, but I need to decide on two main lenses, two focal lenghts.."

Freddie looked at her and shrugged. "Uhm.. I don't really know. It's in the city hall so you can be right in front of the stage. I don't really know if that helps you. But no flash because that's distracting."

"Oh no, of course not. That would only ruin the atmosphere. If it's dark, then it's dark. I have some powerful lenses that can definitely cope. You can see that in this picture..." She looked through the stack and pulled out a dark, but still sharp picture. "And that's just my favourite, I can definitely handle low light now. I practised a lot and of course I now also have the right equipment. It will be fine, don't worry. As long as you tell me roughly what kind of pictures you'd like I will do that."

"Well, we want good pictures, of course. Whatever that tells you." Freddie smiled at her.

Ellie chuckled and nodded. "Yes, of course, that's what I thought. But do you want closeups, or full stage pictures, horizontal or vertical, do you have any preferences? I'm just asking because I've had people tell me very loudly not to do any closeups or not to do any vertical shots.."

"Oh dear, no, don't worry. Whatever works best for you we'll be happy with. And I'm afraid we can't actually pay you. You won't have to pay for the gas, or any of the food, that's all on us, and we will pay for the prints of the pictures that we want for ourselves. I hope you can live with that.."

Ellie listened to him and nodded. "That sounds good.. Yeah, I guess that's fair. I get the film from my university, so that sounds fine with me. You can get as many prints as you want, as long as you pay for them and I keep the negatives."

"Of course. That's what we had in mind, right?" Freddie asked his friends who all nodded.

"Alright, I think we have a deal." She held out her hand for Freddie and smiled.

Freddie shook her hand and smiled. "Wonderful, wonderful. Okay, so we're leaving Saturday morning or Friday night, we haven't decided yet. Do you have a preference?"

"I don't really mind. When do you have to play on Saturday? I'm off work completely on Friday, Saturday and Sunday so whatever works for you."

"I think we should leave Friday so we can be relaxed on Saturday, y'know? Then we don't have to care about traffic jams or anything."

Ellie glanced at Brian and sighed. Of course he would suggest that. Why had she even agreed? She hadn't wanted that at first. But somehow she had managed to push Brian out of her thoughts when she talked to Freddie and she had gotten so excited that she had completely forgotten about the fact that Brian would be there the entire time. Every single minute. When all she wanted to do was to not think about him. And now she had told them it was up to them, so she could hardly say that she would prefer leaving Saturday, especially because Brian had a point and she didn't want to be the reason why the weekend would be pure stress.

"I would actually like that too, yeah, then I can go say hi to my mum on Saturday," Roger said, agreeing with Brian.

Ellie sighed softly. Now she didn't have a chance. How could she be against that now?