Red Herring ✔️

22. The Eyes Are the Window to the Soul

14 Days to Halloween

"Gosh, Mazie, you're so beautiful! This is gonna be a smooth easy shoot!" Callie, her senior portrait photographer exclaimed as son as Mazie exited Fe's mini van when they arrived in a field in the middle of nowhere less than ten miles outside Hollywood. Fe's van was really cramping her style, but then again, Mazie's unfortunate turn of events the night prior was doing a pretty good job at being a damper all on its own. 

"I told you," Fe muttered, elbowing Mazie in the ribs to jolt her to attention.

"Thanks, Callie, I'm looking forward to it." She swallowed and smiled as warmly as possible. 

As much as she had been looking forward to this session that she broke months ago, she dreaded being here, forced to smile and look happy when she was anything but. 

"So I got here a little early and set up." Callie was currently running circles around an antique chair in the middle of the field. "I"m just trying to get this grass to lay down a little ore so that there aren't any pieces in your face or distracting from you, the focal point," Callie explained. 

Mazie learned from her mom that Callie used to be a model when she was a teenager and young adult. Then she switched to a seat behind the camera instead of in front of it. And she did look terribly charming with that camera around her neck like she belonged in a Hallmark Christmas movie. 

It was no surprise to learn of Callie's prior career who was all legs and a very trim torso. It was safe to bet she probably had cute feet too. She dressed in washed out high waisted mom jeans, cute black booties, a chunky oversized red sweater probably picked up at a vintage consignment store, and a cream colored winter vest. The whole look was so tastefully retro that Mazie was jealous. 

Her mom also informed her that Callie's grandparents moved to the US from Korea, so now Callie was an Asian-American beauty ex-model who spent her days photographing memorial moments by day and keeping her Korean language kills strong by teaching English online to kids in Korea by night for fun. 

To top it all off, she effortlessly swept half of her black hair - that would make Jennifer Anniston jealous - back in a little twist with wispy enviable bangs covering her forehead. And she wore the cutest red prescription glasses that literally no one else on the planet could pull off. 

Meanwhile, Mazie was supposed to be feeling good enough about herself to photograph well in her one and only shot at her senior pictures. 

Not a chance when she was comparing herself to Callie the ex-model photographer with red glasses. 

"Okay, Mazie. You can take a seat here. Don't worry too much about posing. I just need some preliminary shots to make sure I've got everything set up on my end." Callie motioned to the chair while Callie messed with the buttons on her camera. 

As Mazie sat in the chair, slumped over with her palms holding onto the seat framing her knees, she already itched to fire off a million questions about how Callie prepared the shoot and why. Also, she wanted to ask how she set up her camera and why she liked that camera in particular. 

Without warning, Callie snap a few pictures then scrolled through the images. "Good, good. Okay turn your head slightly to the right towards the sun."

Mazie obeyed but wondered.... "How do you know the sun is that? It's so cloudy."

Callie slipped her glasses up on top of her head to peer through the viewfinder to snap another photo. Then she dropped her glasses back onto her nose. "I used a compass to find the sun. Just because it's overcast doesn't mean the sunlight doesn't have direction. It's just scattered." Callie looked up at the sky. "This is actually perfect weather. It will give your photos a very rich look. I think it's just what you're looking for."