I'm a photograph

Well, I had pictures taken of me yesterday. Nothing provocative, all very tasteful. Minimal leather. Actually it was new headshots.

Headshots are kind of an odd beast for me. First off, I don’t photograph well. I started to realize that at a relatively young age, the fact that if I tried to look happy, I’d end up looking stupid, and if I tried to look serious, I’d look stupid, and if I tried to look relaxed, I looked tense and stupid. To counteract this, I started making what I call my ‘Goofy excited face’. In every picture short of a funeral picture (Who takes pictures at funerals, anyway?), I make this face. It beats the camera to the punch, sort of an, “I know you’re going to make me look bad so I’ll beat you to it. Take that, Nikkon.” Honestly, I don't even have control over it anymore.



See? Sadly, even when nice looking people are taking a picture with me, I end up dragging them down in my ‘Goofy Excited Face’ Hell. Even if you’re a 9 or 10 on the “How hot is that person on a 1-10 scale?” I’ll probably knock you down by at least ½ a point. More if I give you bunny ears. All courtesy of my picture face.

Unfortunately, headshots are a necessary evil for what I do. And I can’t make the ‘Goofy Excited Face’ for them, either. Getting my picture taken and having to look ‘cool’ for it ranks right up there with: having to write my bio for playbills, having to introduce myself to people who obviously don’t care who I am, and having to comb my hair and shave my face. These are things that give me no real pleasure.

However, to make the experience less painful, I enlisted the help of my pal Stacey (http://www.staceybode.com/) to snap the shots. Stacey is a talented lady (in no particular order: dancer, piano player, actress, scientist, photographer) and probably one of the 3 funniest girls I’ve ever met in my life. So we wandered around East Atlanta and snapped shots. And Stacey made it very easy. Instead of the pressure of getting the ‘perfect shot’, it felt like to buds running around the city being silly. Didn’t everyone have that friend in high school who suddenly got into the camera and wanted to take pictures of everything (usually graveyards)? Well, it was like that, sans the graveyard and teen angst. I laughed quite a bit so I imagine there will be lots of pictures of my mouth gaping open and me laughing.

Not sure how they turned out by Stacey seemed pleased so that’s fine with me. I looked at a couple and they seemed cool. Always hard for me to judge. So new pictures soon. But never fear: I’ll unleashing the ‘Goofy Excited Face’ again at a party near you.