Whenever I spend time with Drizzler I am guaranteed a photo shoot. All who know me know that I love to take pictures of anything and everything. Staged, candid, blurry – I’m not picky. Drizzler, however, has a preference. “I prefer candid shots,” she has told me on more than one occasion. Although this may be true, she must prefer looking at them as opposed to taking them. This was evident when we were hanging out at her house one night. “Quick. Where is your camera? I’ve got to get a picture of you right now. OK, sit how you were sitting before and look over at the door. A little more to the right. Nope, too far. Yes, there, that’s perfect. I just love candid shots.” “Me too. We should take some later,” I replied.
‘Later’ provided us one of our favorite photo opps: sailing. While sailing, Drizzler and I have made a tradition of taking pictures of each other (individually and collectively) while File Not Found deals with sheets, cleats, the tiller and anything else necessary to keep our paparazzi boat afloat and moving. As we were making our way back to the dock, Drizzler suggested I stand on the bow and pose like I did several years ago, “That’s your signature pose,” she told me, “You have to do it every time.”
I approached the bow and received further advice, “Lean back as far as you can. It will be fine.” Feeling a bit sketch about it, I hesitated. “Come on, you did it before,” she reminded me and added, “OK, now back up a bit. Keep backing up and spread out your arms like an angel.” “I don’t know about this. We are going pretty fast and I think we were docked when I did that last time. “She’s right,” File Not Found piped in, after finding the file that housed our last sailing excursion. “If she leans any further all it would take is one good wake and she’ll fall off.”
After our maritime madness, we were unwinding in the Amish garage. Once again, Drizzler saw a moment that needed to be captured on film, asked me for my camera, and began taking multiple ‘candid’ shots. File Not Found’s friend was intrigued, “I’ve never seen anything quite like this. You are seriously a digital pimp.” As we all laughed about this she said, “I love how happy you all look right now. I’ve got to get this candid shot. Wait, we need more light and you guys need to move closer together. Oh, yeah. That’s it. Perfect. OK, let’s take one more, just in case. This time, kneel down just a bit……”