‘It’s almost a portrait.’
WHAT’S YOUR STORY, WHAT’S YOUR SIGN
Torrance James & Victoria Brandon
It’s a surprising shot to find amongst the stack after he takes them out of the envelope in the safety of the RV. Freddie is tapping away nearby, blissfully ignorant to everything happening around him while Jenny busies herself digging around in the cabinets for a box of tea she swore she bought a few days ago but now can’t find. Tor is the only one working but sometimes he can’t switch off, his mind running itself ragged with stray details and loose ends even when the others have wound down and washed their hands of the completed job. Tor doesn’t know how they do it.
The important shots, the ones they had gone into the venue to get, have already been removed and handed off to the client for a sizeable sum. A simple job really and certainly not one for the history books, in and out and on they go, moving along to the next client and the next task. Tor doesn’t know what to do with all the extra photos, all these strays that now scatter themselves across the small table around which the three of them regularly eat their meals or strategize together. Most of the photographs are unremarkable with odd blurs of movement or light catching on champagne flutes and expensive jewellery but this one stands out as different from all the others. It’s almost a portrait. Tor doesn’t remember taking it.
In one hand he holds the shot as he studies it. She looks happy to be there and he thinks he remembers the conversation as he passed it by and snapped a few shots, his cover as a photographer for a local newspaper covering the event getting him all the right access and freedom of movement. Something political he thinks, teasing comments about government officials and poor decisions. Strange to see someone so happy to be discussing such a dull -- in his opinion at least -- subject but maybe she’s faking it. Maybe that smile on her face and the amusement in her eyes have nothing to do with the jokes being passed between her and the men she was standing with, maybe she’s actually making fun of them without them knowing it. Something about the angle of her head and the confidence that is clear even in the still shot he holds in his hand tells him she might just be the type.
Jenny’s triumphant announcement that she’s found the tea disrupts his thoughts and he sets the photograph back onto the pile to be dealt with later. He still doesn’t know what he’ll do with them but maybe the others will have some ideas.