DAY 16, JULY 23, 2013
I woke this morning to the to the gurgling of the pool cleaning
system, a motorized little vacuum cleaner that automatically travels the bottom
of the pool eating all the bacteria. It’s become a white noise that gently
wakes me as the sun begins it cresting from the far side of apartment bedroom.
We sleep with the windows open but the screens shut. This morning the hand of a
godly painter had once again begun brushing the sky above the distant hills
with strokes of pink and lavender. Twenty-three has always been a superstitiously
scared talisman for me, a good luck charm in numbers. Even if I glance at a
clock and the digital numbers come up twenty-three it can turn a bad day into a
better one. Today I was glad to give all that good luck to Emmy. It was her day
today.
There’s an American tradition that high school seniors now
participate in lovingly called, “Senior Pictures”. I fully meant to capitalize “Senior
Pictures”, it holds that much importance to Emmy. A High School yearbook for me
meant a single picture taken by the local portrait photographer who held a
contract with the school so everyone’s picture looked pretty much the same, a
black and white image shot against a gray background with little more than a
pasted smile or a blank stare differentiating the photos.
Now the senior
picture is an entire portfolio worthy of an Elite model. It can require hair
and make-up, several locations and a professional photographer. We some how
promised Emmy she could do hers in Tuscany. So this is what consumed our day.
We had compiled a list of photos she wanted to take. She had
to have a minimum of six. We had informed Stefania of this a month before we
were to arrive. She, of course, knew someone in the village who was a
professional photographer up to the task. Diego spoke no English so Stefania
acted as our go between, translator and negotiator. Through this chain of
telephone we worked out a price for photography, hair and make-up. Stefania
kept on repeating how excited Diego was to do this job. He hadn’t done anything
like it before. These were not encouraging words.
We had settled on a starting time of three in the afternoon.
Diego wanted to capture the best light of the day. I wanted to make sure he
could capture six shots before the sun went down. I figured it was going to be
touch and go given that in the heat of Italy nothing really happens on time and
even though the Papacy resides nearby I don’t think they had the power to
extend the number of light hours in a day.
They arrived promptly at 3:30. That meant we were starting
out with thirty-minutes of lost time and light. As each member of the team
walked in the door we offered our hand and our name. This worked with Diego and
the make-up artist but the hairstylist didn’t take the hint. We never did find
out what her name was. Make-up went first. We managed to have Stefania
translate that we wanted a fresh look, not too heavy and definitely not too
hoochie coochie. Make-up did a commendable job.
When it was our unnamed
hairstylist’s turn we asked for some soft waves. Emmy even had a picture of
what she wanted. The girl kept on saying, “Si, si” and then proceeded to crimp
the back of Emmy’s head, burning a piece of her scalp, and making sausage curls
instead of soft waves.
She left the whole thing in rollers until we got to our
first site, the narrow streets of Buoconvento, before she began to undo the
Farah Fawcett meets eighties pop star end result. By then it was too late to
turn around so Emmy held her chin high and went on with the shoot.
The look was
real Toddlers and Tiaras but if anyone could pull it off it was going to be
Emmy and Diego and they did. I bit my tongue with my displeasure with her hair
until we got back in the car heading to our second location, a sunflower field
just outside town.
Emmy and I explained that this look wasn’t her and it
wasn’t. She is not beauty queen material; she’s more elegant than that. Our
hairstylist relented and for the sunflowers we pulled her hair back to simpler
more tamed look.
With the new hairdo break we were racing the clock now to
get all her pictures in before the light was completely gone. With each passing
minute the sun was sinking lower and lower in the western sky. It was full
speed back to Armena. Emmy sat in the back seat frantically pulling pins out of
her cement-like hair-sprayed do. Once back it was a quick wash and blow dry
returning Emmy’s hair back to its original silky straight look. Our problem now
was really the light. I had been nervous about the starting time given the list
of photos we were trying to accomplish but our Italians were all sure we could
get all of our shots in before we ended up doing the last half of our list with
a candle and a prayer.
Never and I mean never consider doing a shoot with animals
without giving yourself at least an extra hour of fudge time. Our horse was
beautiful but despite assurances that he was calm as bath water he reared and skittered
every time one of the kids jumped in the pool or splashed too loudly.
We desperately tried to get in a couple more shots poolside
and by the entry to our apartment. We semi succeeded but the last two shots
relied more on the beauty of the sunset and artificial lighting than the
natural light that had made the first part of the shoot so beautiful. We needed
Diego’s talent to get us through to the end.
Diego said we would have a disc by the end of
the week. Diego kept turning the camera to Emmy so she could see the results as
we went along, the advantages of digital photography. She was very pleased.
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