So now, here I sit, with my little dog. We have a french door in the kitchen. The little dog is always sitting by the door looking out. He's looking at the squirrels get fat on the birdseed. The damn dog shakes so much, he'd be a great drink mixer. All I got to do is make a harness for him, put a drink holder on it, put some ice in the drink holder and voila! I have a good Margarita mixer. Kind of sick right? That's the kind of stuff I think about when I'm stuck in the wheelchair studying a dog for a couple of hours.
Last week was Thanksgiving. It was pretty cool. We had my whole family here, except for my little one. Boy did I miss her. Anyway, we had a good thanksgiving. And I was thinking it's a good time to really give a thanks. Like for example, I'm thankful I'm still alive. I'm thankful to have such a great family and friends. I very thankful to my friend right in front of me who's typing this all for me, and I'm especially thankful for all the constant small advances I'm making. For example, just the other day, I sat on the floor, and I sat up in Lotus position. I did Yoga and sat up with my legs crossed. I had a little help getting there, but I sat there on my own for, I don't know, 5 minutes? Felt great. It was the first time I sat up on my own. First time in 2 years. Then I fell over. Anyway, it's a good time to be thankful.
This past week, I had a lot of small advances. Like I said before, I feel my body starting to wake up. It's kind of good and bad. You feel your hands more, but you also feel the pain more. You feel like you're getting worse, but you're actually getting better. My eyesight is getting better. It's slow, so damn slow, but I'm getting there. I don't know where I'm going, but I'm getting there. Like I said before, when you're in a bad way, try to think of other things. I would often think about things that happened on photographic shoots. The following stories I feel a little awkward about, but I'll tell you anyway.
I was assigned to shoot a beauty story for a well known magazine. I was supposed to shoot in the Bahamas. Well, like a young idiot, I booked my girlfriend. She was definitely not right for the job, but you know, hey, it sounded like a good idea at the time. Anyway, the art director said to me, "Hey, we have to shoot an extra shot and tack it on to the beauty shoot in the Bahamas." Well, the shot, what I was to do, had to be cast so they brought in the model, you know, my girlfriend. They said to her, here put this on and the photographer, Brian Nice, will do a picture of you. Oh yeah, they didn't know the model and I were going out. Anyway, they said, "Brian will do the photo of you for the art director." Well, the photo was very specific. I had to do a butt shot. And they handed her a G-string. The looks from her to me ranged from instant death to why are you doing this to me? And even worse. I took the photo and I said, "Oh she's terrible. We've got to book another girl for the butt shot." This did nothing but make my assistant laugh, and her, the model, my girlfriend, want to kill me even more.
We often book models for the body parts. For example, we would photograph a girl and have another girl come in with her hands. I was to do a shoot like this. We already had the girl for the head shot, but I needed to book a girl for the hands. The girl that was to do the head shot had terrible hands. Anyway, I was doing my casting, you know, looking for girls with nice hands, and it got to be rather late. The casting was over and I hadn't found anyone. All of a sudden, a doorbell rang, late at night. A girl showed up wearing white gloves. She said, Hi, I'm here for the casting, sorry I'm late. Well we sat down, I said, "OK, let me see your book." She did have nice hands. She did have nice legs. She did have a nice butt. She did have nice everything, but her face. Sorry to be rude, but that's the way it is. Anyway, on the last page was a photo of her topless, and then a close up of her chest, bare. She said to me, "Do you want to see them? I get many compliments on them all the time." I can feel my ears burning. I must have been bright red. I looked up to her. I was about to say something when she whipped off her gloves and started modeling her hands. She was talking about her hands! Thank God!
The following story took place in Paris, France. I was photographing for an assignment with a famous lingerie label. We were shooting in Monte Carlo. It was a good shoot and going even better. Anyway, we got done and the client that handled the company showed up. He wanted to see the Polaroids, examples of shots we did from the day. Anyway, I opened my diary to show him the Polaroids and all I found was underwear in my book. My assistant put the models underwear in my diary. Even worse, the model came over and said, "Oh, there's my underwear," and ripped it out of my book. It was all a little awkward. I don't think you could have planned it better if you tried. The head client looked at me and he had a very serious look on his face. He looked at me and he said, "Bravo Breean, Bravo." I got my assistant back.
I mentioned this before, but it really does help to think of other things when you're in a bad way. Think about things that make you happy. For example, I have one friend who was an awesome windsurfer. I used to follow him like a young idiot. He would say, "See those waves over there mate? Follow me, we're going to big surf." Or he'd say, "See that big tanker over there, we're going to duck in behind it and windsurf past it." I'd be like - OK. And being a young idiot, I'd just follow him. Actually, have you ever see an empty tanker before, up close, it's amazing. The blade in the back is like the size of a 4 story house, with water falling off of it. It's unbelievable. Thank God I didn't fall. Anyway, I would think about little adventures like this. I would think about it all the time. He was a good windsurfer, a good friend and a good photographer.
Below is a drawing I did of something I'm not so proud of. Imagine this - imagine having a really good dinner in the Caribbean. We were all on a photographic shoot. We got done with dinner. We're walking back to our rooms. Well, the pier into the ocean looked beautiful at night, so we walked to the end of the pier. The pier went down about 20 feet into the dark ocean. It was a beautiful night. We were all standing there. I was there with an editor I had never worked with. It was a dark night, but the water looked really sharky. I looked over at the editor and pushed her in. She screamed, "OH my God you're crazy!" and I jumped in after her. I helped her to the ladder, and we climbed back up onto the pier. Everyone started running away from me for some reason. That's it.
Not much else to report. I'm still working hard sunrise to sunset. I continue to get better, and I really, really appreciate all the nice emails I get. Everywhere from Australia, Paris, everywhere. Thank you so much. You guys are great. Anyway, it's back to work for me. I'll talk to you next week. Love, B. Nice
Oh yeah, my friend here will post some more drawings from my diary and she'll enclose my link to my next project.
https://mypointofviewproject.wordpress.com/
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