Today I went on a photo-shoot. The concept of a photo-shoot sounds glamorous and exciting (or if like me you hate having your photo taken, daunting): bright lights, impeccable styling, diva-like photographers making sure that every last thing is put precisely in its place.
This was nothing like that.
Instead I was the token under-50-year-old in a small group whose job it was to stand on footpaths and look grumpy. More precisely, narrow, ugly, fenced-off footpaths going across beautiful countryside which used to be freely accessible to all, but which has now been taken over by hugely affluent developers in order that they can build second homes for their equally affluent friends. Not surprisingly, local people get rather upset when this happens, but having little financial clout their views count for rather less than those of city bankers who want to buy their own little bit of sanitised 'countryside' as a weekend retreat. This has been taking place for some time in the area in which I grew up, but now a persistent soul who lives a few miles away (where the situation is even worse) has managed to get a national newspaper interested. Okay, so it's the Sunday Express, not a rag I'd usually pay money for, but it's better than nothing. So this morning we tramped out and, under the direction of a very friendly and not at all prissy photographer, walked up and down some rather unattractive footpaths very slowly. Repeatedly. Two hours and heaven knows how many clicks of the shutter later, we were done.
Instead I was the token under-50-year-old in a small group whose job it was to stand on footpaths and look grumpy. More precisely, narrow, ugly, fenced-off footpaths going across beautiful countryside which used to be freely accessible to all, but which has now been taken over by hugely affluent developers in order that they can build second homes for their equally affluent friends. Not surprisingly, local people get rather upset when this happens, but having little financial clout their views count for rather less than those of city bankers who want to buy their own little bit of sanitised 'countryside' as a weekend retreat. This has been taking place for some time in the area in which I grew up, but now a persistent soul who lives a few miles away (where the situation is even worse) has managed to get a national newspaper interested. Okay, so it's the Sunday Express, not a rag I'd usually pay money for, but it's better than nothing. So this morning we tramped out and, under the direction of a very friendly and not at all prissy photographer, walked up and down some rather unattractive footpaths very slowly. Repeatedly. Two hours and heaven knows how many clicks of the shutter later, we were done.
The kind of thing that gets our goat.
No comments:
Post a Comment