Retirement has many compensations! The opportunity to take holidays at any time I fancy is one I rate highly. This is the story about a recent enjoyable break.
I recently spent Christmas away in a lovely city centre hotel in Bath in the English West Country. What a beautiful town, relaxing, full of history and incredibly photogenic! On Boxing Day I took my camera out to enjoy this photogenic place. When I returned to the warmth of the hotel I witnessed an unusual confrontation at the reception desk.
The duty receptionist, a slightly dumpy but curvaceous Spanish girl, was trying to photograph one of the chambermaids on the other side of the reception counter. For some reason the young blond chambermaid seemed less than willing to have the picture taken and was holding a newspaper in front of her face. The Spanish girl grumpily put the reception's digital camera down and reached for my key. The chambermaid looked triumphant!
Being retired means you can join in almost anything without causing too much offence! "Oh that's not fair" I laughed. "That would have been such a pretty picture. Here let me show you." I picked up the diminutive camera, checked it was switched on and prepared to take a picture. The defensive newspaper was already deployed.
"OK" I tried in my best conspiratorial whisper, "let's try just peeping round the paper". I gently moved the girl's hand so that only half of her face was covered from the camera's viewpoint. Before she realised what was happening I had framed the shot to include her half-face and just a narrow edge of paper. The result on the monitor screen looked OK.
"That's great" I encouraged softly. "Let's try another." I was able to frame and focus even better this time.
"Fantastic", I breathed. "Your eyes are beautiful. Let's try another, just look straight into the lens. Fabulous!" I clicked again. "Tilt your head outwards slightly." Click. "Fantastic, you should be a model." I murmured. Click.
"Now imagine it is not a newspaper and that you are peeping round a shower curtain." My voice was low, no-one else could hear. Click. My face was behind the camera while this lovely girl was concentrating her attention on the lens. Click. She was a photographer's dream!
"You see your lover's back, warm steaming water flowing across the skin." I breathed to her and her expression reflected my suggested scenario. Click.
"Now your lover turns sideways." Click. The girl was responding, her eyes wide, her lips parted. Click.
"Your lover sees you and smiles." Click.
"You move the shower curtain away for a better view." Click. The newspaper 'curtain' descended slowly. Click, click.
"You smile back." Click. She was gorgeous when she smiled. Click, click.
Unfortunately other staff had seen what was happening and were standing nearby. They couldn't hear what I had been saying but they saw the effect. When the chambermaid saw them she put her scowling mask back on and flipped the newspaper in my direction. Before she could leave I gave the girl the camera.
"Get these pictures on a computer screen and see what you think." I whispered urgently. "If you want me to take some with a better camera you know my room number." Just to make sure I flashed the key fob so that only she could see it, then she was gone. She looked so cross that I didn't expect to see her again.
Back in my room I took off my outdoor clothes, kicked off my shoes and turned the kettle on to make a cup of tea. In this beautiful Georgian city I had taken numerous pictures so I pulled out my laptop and set it running so that I could look at my results. By the time the computer was ready I had poured boiling water over the teabag in the cup. Leaving it to brew I pulled the compact flash card from the camera and popped it into the slot. As I stirred the tea today's pictures came up on the screen.
I sat back on the bed and watched a slide show of the unedited shots, some were OK, a few were good and the majority were passable record pictures. I was especially pleased with a set I hope to merge into a panorama of the famous Royal Crescent. I drank my tea and thought about how some of the shots could be better. 'Going out earlier in the day' was the best option I could suggest to myself. Well, maybe tomorrow . . "
There was a soft knocking at the door. I opened it to find the chambermaid, no longer wearing her official overalls, she held out the camera and explained that she couldn't access a computer without someone else present. She wanted to see the pictures without the other staff around.
There were two chairs in the room, so rather than have us sit on the bed I moved them so that we could both see the screen with the computer sitting at the end of the bed. She told me her name was Sophie and that she was from Slovakia. There were several staff who came over together every Christmas/New Year to augment the English hotel staff.
"OK Sophie, please call me Jack." I said as I offered the memory card into the slot "Let's see how they came out." Even after several years of using the technology I never cease to be amazed by digital photography! Having grown up with film, which might take days or weeks to fill a roll and a similar time to get developed and printed, I get a thrill every time I plug in a card and see pictures coming up instantly. Fantastic, up they came and didn't look too bad in the thumbnails. I adjusted the display to get them filling the laptop screen and set the slide show running at slow speed.
I sat back a little with half an eye on Sophie and the other on the screen. She was enthralled! The first couple showed an apprehensive girl, nervous of the camera and the photographer. The portraits gradually changed as she got into my 'game'. The final few were not bad at all! The photographic quality might have been better but the content was amazing. Sophie's face as she watched the screen captivated me! By the final shot, which stayed on the screen as the slide show ended, she changed from formal and guarded to animated and delighted.
Sophie turned to me "Mister Jack, can we see them again please?" Her English was quite good with a sexy European accent!
"No problem Sophie, would you like them to go slower or quicker or maybe you would like to control the change?" I asked. Sophie chose to change them for herself.
"I not like this" she pouted at the first picture "It make me look not 'appy!"
"Well Sophie" I explained, "This was the first shot and maybe you were a bit surprised that I would be so bold. But there are some nice things in the shot, see how the light from the window behind you lights up your lovely golden hair."
