The man with the big camera

We rarely get a picture of our entire team together. First of all, there’s a lot of us. Second of all, when we’re all together, there’s usually not anyone else around to take our picture. Thirdly, it’s just a pain. However, realizing that we didn’t have a single picture of the entire team from this year, we knew it had to be done during our team retreat.

Our first attempt was snagging a random lady at St. Sophia’s and asking her to take the picture. It quickly became evident, though, that she didn’t have much photography experience, and most certainly not with a larger camera. The results being slightly less than satisfactory, we moved to attempt number two: propping the camera up on a bag and setting a timer. This produced a decent result, but shooting up at people is not the most flattering of angles (and all the women with hips said amen).

Lastly, we resorted to possession profiling, as in looking around for someone with a large camera who might be fit for the task. We spotted a guy with a big Nikon, squatted in an awkward position taking someone’s picture, and knew we had found our guy. We went over to ask him to take a picture of the group, little knowing how seriously he would take his job. After looking at us, he quickly shook his head in disapproval and came up to reposition some of us. He started doing charades with me and pointing at Lauren, and when I failed to understand his directions, physically picked up my hand to place it in the desired location–grasping the side of her sunglasses. He then proceeded to stage a few other people as well, for example, Rachel’s hand was placed on top of Maddie’s head. Anthony was supposed to be playing with my hair, but compromised with a hand on my shoulder.

The result is not only a picture of the whole team, but one likely to induce laughter for all of us from here on out.