Convocation

Date: 5/16/2022

Convocation is at my house this year. I'm on the film crew with MO and AP. AP and I are sleeping in so we are well rested.l, but MO is nagging, worried we'll miss the instructions. AP is terrified. His first live event. I gently touch his hand to let him know he'll be fine while MO panics. The master of ceremonies is giving directions. I can't find my dog. Too many people. He's run off. MO will video the procession and AP will video the close up on stage. And me? I take the dog food to the dock but can't find him. There are grads, and coyotes everywhere. I put the bowl down for a coyote. Maybe that will piss my dog off and he'll come back. I am told to take the grad photos. The MC starts explaining the camera to me. "I took a photography course," I tell him. He raises an eyebrow. "Yeah, when I majored in Film at University." He looks relieved now. Who would have thought they hired people with skills here? He wants the photos to be portrait orientation, head and chest. "Tits Up," I summarize. "NO!" exclaims his wife, the art director, who looks like Fred Flintstine's mother-in-law. She draws a line on her chest with her hand above her breasts. "So no Tits," I repeat, and she storms away. So basically, a square subject in a rectangular frame. Good thing I got straight A's. The camera they give me is f'd. Looks like an ethc-a-sketch. As you tip it, the picture changes. Most directions, it shows the camera person in the picture with the subject. Just what the grads want. I grab a plastic kids' camera from the shelf instead. All you need is a box with a hole in it. Morons. Let's take some nice pictures, outside, in the gardens.