OUT OF HIS FRAME
At the start of graduation season, my boyfriend took more than two hundred photos of Madison Vale.
Chase Whitman was president of Westbridge University’s photography club. He knew how to find flattering light and how to coax people out of stiff smiles.
Madison stood beneath the maples outside the library in a white dress, her graduation cap tucked under one arm.
“Am I taking up too much of your time?” she asked.
Chase checked the last few shots and smiled. “You make my job easy.”
When it was finally my turn, he barely looked at me.
“Stand by the tree.”
He clicked the shutter twice and lowered the camera.
“Done.”
I stared at him. “That’s it?”
He turned the screen toward me. In one photo my eyes were half-closed; in the other, a branch shadow slashed diagonally across my face.
“Can we try again?”
Chase sighed. “Avery, you always tense up. Fifty more takes won’t change that.”
Ten minutes later, my phone buzzed.
He had posted in the Westbridge Buy:
Twenty dollars for someone to spend ten minutes taking a few graduation photos of my girlfriend. Nothing fancy. She just needs something usable.
Half an hour later, a stranger replied.
I sent him my location, then added: Just so you know, I’m not very photogenic.
His answer came almost immediately: That usually says more about the photographer than about the subject.
When Rowan Hayes arrived, he looked at Chase’s two photos and said, “He didn’t even try.”
An hour later, he sent me the raw files.
No filters, no heavy retouching. Just me on the library steps, my hair loose in the wind and my eyes brighter than I remembered them being.