I was watching the television show “The People’s Court,” and I noticed an odd phenomenon. When the show would break for commercials, a split screen would show the opposing litigants and the images seemed to have been selected with a view toward showcasing the most awkward or unattractive faces and moments. I was amused to realize that, and something slightly wicked in me wanted to be the one making “the pick” that made the screen.
I worked in retail fashion photography for many years, and the images in the sale catalogs had to reflect favorably on the institution. The models had to look good in the clothes and the clothes had to be the best offered for sale. I would contract with a fashion photography studio in New York and fly into “the city” to manage the photo shoot. I would choose the models who were to wear the clothing — men, women and children — and have fittings to insure that the clothing worked on the person selected for it. The studio would fill with clothing stylists, hair and makeup artists, merchandise managers and pressers, model bookers, photographers and assistants. The week would be planned out and the shoot would commence. The art director would stand near the photographer as he directed the models to turn, stop walk, smile, pout and jump.
The process sounds glamorous and romantic but it was grueling and tedious. Before the conversion to digital photography, we were shooting film. Each roll had, I believe, 24 exposures, and the photographer shot between 5 and 10 rolls. If the film count got too high, the photographer would give the art director the “side eye,” then ask, “Do we have it yet?” The developed film was then reviewed by the art director (or someone on his or her creative staff) to find one good image. That search could take one through up to 240 images, after which the selected image has to be approved by the creative director. In a small catalog, there might be 60 fashion images, which means that approximately 7,000 images had to be reviewed for inclusion in the catalog. That meant a lot of squinting at film, a lot of time over a light box. And once those images were chosen, scanned and positioned on the pages of the catalog, the art director presented the product to the creative director, who would, after reviewing the selections made by the art director, ask for a different selection, or “a new pick.” The art director would then go back through the images and choose the second team.
I have often thought of the decisions that I have made about the direction, tenor, texture and direction of my life and wondered what the choices I have made from the universe defined by my passage through the days. The poet Robert Frost mused on the roads that diverged in a wood, and one road taken, and the other not chosen. I have wondered about the moments of my life, captured and arrayed on an image viewer from which I can make selections, and tried to imagine what life I might have lived had I made a different choice here, there, anywhere.
The wheel of time has turned and its passage has drafted another page into the air; it will hang suspended between the bindings of our days and will then float down onto the record of previous years. When we reflect on our imprint on the lives we have built, I am amused to think how much different our lives would have been if we could each ask of ourselves, in certain circumstance, for a new pick.