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Recently in Salon Mothers Who Think

Rolling baby killers
Walkers cause more infant deaths and accidents than any other baby furniture. Now, thanks to the boom in e-commerce, they are readily available online.
By Damien Cave
[12/30/99]

The Great First-Baby-of-the-Millennium Race
To win I've got to squat directly over the international dateline.
By Leah Eskin
[12/24/99]

I was a closet thumb sucker until I was 11
I want my daughters to suck without fear.
By Pamela Gordon
[12/23/99]

A Jew for baby Jesus
I can't help having myself a merry little Christmas.
By Amy Silverman
[12/22/99]

Mixing the holidays
A little cross-religious indulgence isn't going to damn anyone to an eternity in hell. Is it?
By Gentry Lane
[12/22/99]

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Of course, when the kid relaxed, smiled and had fun, my job was a pleasure. Once, in the small town of Carthage (Al Gore's ancestral home), I shot a session with a very young boy whose parents referred to him as "Q," and whose full name featured an intricate spelling I couldn't hope to recall. Q's smile threatened to burst off his face; he appeared overstuffed with happiness. I can't recall ever being as pleased as Q seemed to be, even when I was his age. Especially when I was his age. After we had breezed through seven poses, I thanked him vociferously.

Easy as Q or tough as Tiffany, it didn't really matter. Under all circumstances, the job required me to have a split personality. For the retail work, I had to be persuasive and commanding. The photography part demanded the bozo treatment.

I guess I knew that I would have to act as silly as possible -- make bizarre noises and raid my shopping cart for every colorful toy or tickling device I could find there. I was chasing a chimerical moment, an unself-conscious flash of innocence, joy and wonder.

Gripping the camera trigger behind my back, I would watch carefully for the unforced, honest smile I knew would make the heavens part. When it didn't work, I felt guilty, as if there were some wonderful face I could have made or corny joke I could have told and didn't.

Sometimes my customers provided the shtick, with me as unsuspecting straight man.

Late one week, a long line had built up at the end of the day and those waiting had elected (to my dismay) to stand in a crowd around the studio and watch the sessions. Two boys were on the table, aged 5 and 7, with their mother standing guard on one side and their grandmother on the other. The kids seemed quite taken with my stuffed dinosaur, and I was "getting them" with it when the mother suggested I "get" Grandma.

As the crowd of perhaps 20 women and children watched anxiously, the older of the boys had an even better idea: "GET MAMAW'S BOOBY!" he shouted, at top volume. "Mamaw" hid behind the fabrics display as the crowd burst into laughter. "Don't you do what he said," she warned me.

And after each session, no matter how unpleasant, I would gamely launch into my discount-card spiel, explaining all the benefits of this little miracle: One free 8x10 every time you come in a free 10x13 family portrait once a year two sets of free accessories and five dollars off any purchase of the extra shots. I could take the most beautiful portraits imaginable, but I knew it didn't mean a thing to the company if I couldn't also sell cards.

In fact, it was the cards that did me in. I was wildly unsuited for the shuck and jive of pushing questionable bargains. I was too shy, too sensitive, too fragile, and I was not a salesman.

I also could not deal with the chaos. I was plunged into at least one completely unanticipated catastrophe per week. In a couple of towns, I actually ran out of film, an occurrence analogous to a gas station running out of gas. I sat in these stores with dozens of key chains, pendants and discount cards, but no film.

"Don't they sell film in the store?" I was asked.

"Noooo, not 46 millimeter film, ma'am. Not at Wal-Mart."

In Madisonville, the studio was set up in the snack bar at the store entrance, and the "air curtain" -- a wall of rushing air that blows at the entrance of most newer Wal-Marts -- was out of order. I hadn't considered it before, but I suddenly became aware of the reason for the air curtain: It was there to keep out insects. Throughout the week we were besieged by flies, which frequently buzzed into otherwise perfect photos. Oddly, the infestation seemed to dissuade absolutely no one from eating at the snack bar.

Next page | You would have one creepy-ass picture in about three weeks