“What are you talking about?” Jane asked.
I shook my head. “Let me try to think of a better example…”
“Do you want to see some skin?” Jane asked, giggling along with Lane.
“You know I don’t do nudes.”
“But you can make an exception for me, right?” she asked, unbuttoning her shirt.
“No nudes, Jane,” I said.
“Aww, c’mon. You’ve never wanted to make a porno?”
I’d never photographed anyone in the nude, seeing nothing artistic about it at all. Tits and ass were tits and ass. “I left one of my lights in the car. I’ll be back.”
Eight minutes later, I returned with a photoflood and startled to find Jane and Lane kissing.
The two burst into laughter, blushing. “Sorry, we were just practicing for the shoot.”
“That’s not the kind of thing I shoot,” I said.
They laughed even more.
I flipped to sepias and the loneliness of desaturation. We went through five hours of shooting, an angling modification and perusal of the visual madness one conveniently referred to as ‘art.’ I was studying Jane, every pore, every scar. How many times had I seen her, how many times had I photographed her? And yet, every click felt like the last.
They both had glasses of wine and were getting frolicsome. I thought back to how we first met, a stroll near the beach as we visited the arcade, laughing about religion and the ineptitudes of life. All my shared moments seemed like separate rolls of film, developed in my mind as I flushed out the colors, boosting contrast and cropping out parts I didn’t like. I’d never understood what the difference between love and an addiction to familiarity was. I loved Jane, didn’t I? I’d been with her for more than two years. But how come I didn’t feel anything special about our commercially branded destiny?
After I finished, I felt an unexpected dread. The prospect of scanning her pictures, touching them up in Photoshop, then adding post-effects to make her more beautiful seemed burdensome. Why was I always working so hard to make people more beautiful than they really were?
A few days passed. She asked to see some of the photos. When I asked for more time, she became insistent. “Why are you being so stubborn? Let me just see a few of the pics.”
“Not till they’re ready.”
A week and fifty-seven arguments later, she said it was ‘over.’
“Me and Lane are going to start seeing each other. I just have so much more fun with her and I’m tired of your depressing mood swings.”
Strangely, I didn’t feel a thing. I plunged myself into the tedium of headshots, proceeding to photos glorifying violence and crime, all the dark seedlings of society dramatized for people to look over in modern art museums and say, ‘Can you believe people actually do that to each other?’
My usual partner in crime, Rick, went to New York for a day to shoot Tupperware. I picked him up at LAX, noticed a massive line.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Lady Gaga skipping the line with the paparazzi after her.”
“You get any?”
“Aww man, you know I don’t do that bullshit.”
As we curved around to the 405, he said, “There’s a party tonight. It’s supposed to be a networking thing for this alternative agency. Interested?”
“What’s an alternative agency?” I asked.
“They do Goth stuff, vampires… you know, weird shit.”
I laughed. “I’m a little tired tonight.”
“Dude, you’ve been avoiding going out, but not this time. This is a professional responsibility.”
I nodded, forcing a grin. “All right.”
Rick was in the army when he picked up photography. He was fit with a staunch posture, and usually had a determined glint in his gaze. We met at a fashion show a few months back. The lead designer reserved a spot in a club that didn’t have a catwalk or lights. The doormen hadn’t heard about a fashion show and stared at us askance. “Is there really a show, or are you guys trying to get in for free?” We were scuttled into a back room to wait. Three hours later, the designer rushed in, not in the least apologetic. “The show will continue,” she assured us. But the models stumbled around because none of them had modeled before, there was scant lighting, and the clothes were barely functional, one model having her top pop off, exposing her tiny breasts for a jubilant throng. I met Rick because the other photographers were too snobby to talk to us. From the beginning, we were making fun of their bad attitudes, Rick saying to one girl, “Sorry, you don’t got the looks to be treating me the way you are.”
This particular day, he was telling me about his friend who’d fallen in love with a stripper. “He was a successful guy, had a lot of money saved away. Lost five years of his life chasing her. He quit his job since she’d been banging other guys when he was at work. He calls me two nights ago, crying that she went back to the clubs. I told him, look man, don’t be stupid. Let it go. But he couldn’t.”
When I dropped him off, he turned to me intently and asked, “What’s the moral of the story, man?”
“Don’t fall in love with strippers?”
“Don’t try changing people, because you can’t.” He gave me a grin. “Thanks for the ride.”
“Hey,” I called out.
“Yeah?”
“Do you ever feel — do you ever feel like everything we do is fake and we just lie to make up things visually?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“Do you ever get tired of it?”
He laughed. “Dude, that’s our job as photographers.” He gave me a pat on the back. “I think you’re suffering from breakup depression. There’ll be some cute girls tonight. We’ll have fun.”
He hopped out, grabbed his bags, and strolled up to his apartment.
II.
It was evening when I met him. I got into his Jeep, a manual transmission with a stubborn, raucous engine.
“What’s been up with you?” he asked as we headed towards Burbank. Tara — a model I’d worked with, who was his friend — had told him I didn’t want to shoot nudes of her.
“I felt uncomfortable about it,” I said.
He burst into laughter. “You’re talented, but you gotta learn how to have fun once in a while.”
“I don’t want to shoot nudes.”
“There are perks with this job, you know? You’re the only photographer I know who doesn’t want to date models.”
“It’s not like I don’t want to date them. It’s more like I’m working with them and I feel self-conscious if I hit on them.”
“And they know that! That’s why they’re attracted to you. You gotta use that to your advantage man. Me, they know I’m a sleazebag. But it’s okay. I’ve had my share of good times.” He described some of his encounters with the models.
“They let you do that?” I asked.
He laughed. “You wouldn’t believe it. A lot of these girls are voyeurs deep down. It’s the only thing that gets them excited. If you make them look prettier than they are, they’ll love you for it. Think about it, man — we know more about the way they look than they do.”
We arrived in the neighborhood, spotted the house with a faded sign that read Agency. We entered, saw four stalwart men clad in leather and rings. “WELCOME!!!” they warmly greeted me.
The hostess, a woman with thick black hair that reached down to her knees, kissed Rick on the cheek.
“This is an associate,” he introduced me. “He’s one of the most talented photographers I know.”
“Not really,” I said.
She gave me a kiss on the cheek. “No need to be modest. Help yourselves to anything you want.”