Last week I was approached by a young lady with a camera while I was on my daily lunch-time walk along Hay St into the city. She asked me if she could take my photo. I was suspicious, so gave a non-committal “Yeah, maybe”. She added that she was a student from the local TAFE around the corner, and she was doing a study in “masculinity”.

My internal thoughts were a mix of “Heyyyy, chicks on the street are finally over their timidity and think I’m totally hot” and “Uh, ok. I wonder where the candid camera guys are” but she looked trustworthy enough and so I agreed and asked her what she had in mind. She said right there on the street was fine. She kneeled down on the pavement to get some shiny silver-windowed building in the background. I wasn’t sure what I should be doing but she just told me to wait a minute while she prepared for the photo. I noticed, then, that her camera was an old-school manual model, not one of the new-fangled Digital SLRs you see around. Must have been a loaner from the school. While she was adjusting shutter speeds and such I asked her “Why me?”, thinking that this still might be a segment to show later on some practical joke video show.

She said that she was attracted to the baseball top I was wearing. I didn’t bother correcting her; it was a basketball top, but in the baseball style. I felt a bit hurt by the fact that it was the top, and not me, which drew her to me but in the end I can live with it, I guess. The clothes, after all, maketh the man and not the other way around.

So, she took a few snaps of me turning my head and looking in different directions, thanked me and toddled off. Looking back I am actually quite chuffed that someone thought to stop me and ask for my photo. I wonder if it will make the cut in her little project. She might go on to be the next Herb Ritts or something, and my image might appear in some Coffee-table book with her early works.