As you know, most of the time, men don't like having their pictures taken, but women do, and I don't necessarily like to wrestle guys that I don't know who hate me on sight, so I've always just taken the easy way and avoided shooting guys as much as possible. Until Austin, who basically took any preconceived notion that I had about shooting guys and dumped them out the window. And now I'll shoot the dudes once again.
This guy was such a natural, he moved so well, everything he did was right. Take, for example, the blue and white shot directly above...I'm here to tell you, no one looks good with their head way to the side like that. Except Austin, who looks to me like James Dean in that shot, then moves on to Chase Crawford in the shot in the blue glass, then the boy next door on the steps. That is one heck of a versatile face. And a heck of a nice guy as well, which I almost didn't have the opportunity to find out.
Let me tell you the story: Ok, first of all, if you know me, you know that I'm obsessive about time. I'm ALWAYS early. I'm the one turning on the lights for the people who work there kind of early. And I live and die by my Blackberry. My "a" and "s" key had fallen off of my Blackberry Pearl, making it really hard to type just about everything, and I wrote Austin down for "tuedy" and I assumed my s and a were missing and the "r" had turned to an "e" and I meant Saturday, since I shoot mainly on weekends, so I went down and waited for him on Saturday, and called and left messages, but they didn't get the message, as their house phone was having problems, so then they waited for me on Tuesday, which was when our appointment was, but of course, I wasn't there, which is my total fear, and why I am always early, especially to photo shoots, when everything has to be as perfect and stress free as possible, because having your picture taken is kind of stressful. Anyway, they called and left a message, and when I got the message, I freaked out, since I have NEVER missed a shoot, EVER. After we got it all straightened out, they were kind enough to give me another shot, and I was wise enough to get another phone so that little trick wouldn't happen again, but I was kind of worried, like, you know, they hate me already, what's going to happen? But when Austin, and his mom, Lisa, who looks like a prettier Teri Hatcher, walked in, and their smiles lit up the room, I knew that everything would be all right.
We started the shoot in some smooth rocks, typical guy shoot...kind of safe and nice, but nothing out of the ordinary. But when we moved on to a rock in the water, something just clicked on in both of us, and we just had a very fun wild ride to Austin's Model side. Somehow, everything that Austin did just looked way current, like on American Idol when they update a song and make it their own...Austin updated poses and made them his own. He just blew it out of the water. He became 40 different people. Every time he looked at the camera, it was to catch another new angle of his face. It was just fascinating to see how many looks he has. It was a totally fun day; it made my job feel new again, which, after 17 years, is a definite bonus.
