The BIG PICTURE - A Camera, A Young Woman, An Uncompromising Ethic

“How can you eat that garbage? It’s all fat and sugar.”

Freyja shrugged. Roxanne was full figured, a euphemism for thirty pounds overweight. Her puffy face had an undefined chin and a tummy roll pouted visible between the bottom of the short jacket and the top of the tight skirt. How come pudgy people were always critical about what other people ate? Just what did they eat when no one was watching? And how come they didn’t wear more flattering clothes? Didn’t they have mirrors?

Freyja wanted to tell Roxanne her ‘buy it and it will fit’ wardrobe wasn’t working but this job could be her other ‘life altering’ opportunity. The publicist’s boss, designer Jacqueline Beliveau was breaking out. A successful shoot could lead to more work and incredible exposure.

Shooting fashion was a pain. It was contrived and artificial. Freyja reveled in the spontaneous – gritty street scenes; ostentatious blooms in a local garden; candid scenes of life and work, serendipitous and illuminating. Still, it gave her a chance to use her camera, and was better than waiting tables, though both had one thing in common – she had to cater to demanding, pretentious, and obnoxious people. The job had been arranged through Mallory, who was friends with Roxanne and worked regularly as a model for the designer. The opportunity wasn’t a result of Freyja’s talent or creativity but rather because of who she knew.

That would change once people saw her photographs of Jacqueline Beliveau’s new collection on retail displays, in store windows, and magazine spreads – maybe even Vogue. Freyja would be in demand, and the money would allow her to call the shots, literally. Sure it was the dream of every photographer, every creative person, as Carly said, but she would achieve it. She was that good.