Chapter 1: Snapshots
I think I've always had the eye of a photographer. A good photographer can step back and see a scene, see a situation, from the outside. Even if you're standing right there, you're not really. You are in your mind's eye; composing the angles, appreciating the light splayed across a tabletop or the patterns produced by the perfect grouping of random objects.
Not many people live life like that. For most people life moves too fast. They live in the thick of it everyday, and that's what brings so many of life's surprises and so much heartbreak. I've always prided myself on being able to step back and view life from the outside, to freeze a moment and analyze it from all sides. That's what I bring to my photography. It's a good trait to possess, until it starts to work too well.
Growing up in Stars Hollow there were always plenty of moments to freeze: festivals and parades, spring sunrises and winter storms. And the people there have so much character. You can really read it on their faces. I was always reading faces and body language.
I found my first camera at a town rummage sale. It was the first one since we had moved there and those kind of things were still new and exciting. It was sitting there on the steps of the gazebo, surrounded by a chipped teapot without a lid, a stack of old National Geographics, a couple of beat up toasters, and a collection of Broadway musicals on 8-track. It was late in the afternoon and things were already coated with a thin layer of pollen. I picked up the old Leica, took a deep breath, and blew most of the pollen away. I ran to find my dad and begged him to buy it.
The majority of those early pictures were somewhat blurry and dark, but I loved them anyway. I guess I could look past those things and still see what I wanted to see in the shots. I'm kind of the same way with people. I always tried to see what I wanted to see in people, even if it wasn't really there.
I fiddled around with the camera for five years, until I started at Stars Hollow High. Photography was an elective, and I also started to work for the school paper. My job was to shoot events at school, including sports. That's how I met Luke. Well, I guess not met really, I mean we had basically known each other since we were little, but we'd never really gotten to know each other. He spent so much time with his family, even before his mom got sick. And when he wasn't with them he was playing sports.
Spring semester they assigned me to cover a story on the track team. They were winning all their meets, and it looked like they were going to the state championships under the leadership of Luke, aka Butch, Danes, their rising senior star. It was an unusually warm day in early May when I ventured out to the track after school. I shot some quick pictures of the team running and doing basic track team stuff. Then I sat around on the bleachers for a while until they were finished.
I watched Luke Danes like I never really had before. He was tall and lean. His hair was cropped short on the sides, but slightly longer on top. The team's uniforms left a lot to be desired, but they did show off his toned chest very nicely. When he ran, Luke looked like he was in another world. He was completely focused on his goal and paid no attention to the things going on around him.
After practice I walked over to where he sat on the field stretching.
"Um, excuse me," I said as my shadow fell over him, breaking his concentration.
"Yeah?" He was kind of unnerving to talk to. His eyes were very intense.
"Um, well, my name is Rachel. I'm supposed to take some pictures of you for the Minutemen Gazette."
"Oh, well, uh...okay. What do you want me to do?"
"Well I thought I'd take some shots of you either running, or getting ready to run, or uh...I...uh, I really don't know. I don't do much sports photography." God. He probably thought I was a complete idiot at this point.
"Okay, well how about this," he said standing up. He walked over to the track again and crouched down like he was about to start a race. He turned his head to look back up at me with a sparkling gleam in his eye. "Is this what you were thinking of?"
All I could think of at the moment were his incredible muscles straining to hold the pose. Damn hormones always flaring up at the most inconvenient times.
"Yes! That's great. Here, let me just..." I snapped a couple shots of him in place, "there. That should be perfect. Thanks."
"Wonderful," he said standing up. He clapped the dust off his palms then looked down and stared at them for a minute. "So, um, I don't usually read the Gazette very often. Could you maybe bring me a copy or two when you run the article? You could bring them by my dad's store, I'm always there."
"Yeah, definitely," I nodded, pushing a curl behind my left ear. "Thanks. Well, I guess I should be going." I smiled at him. He smiled at me. My heart was racing so fast that it beat me home.