March 15 - Shoot with Chiara Clough

The Philosophy: The modern business life of cubicles, offices, desks, computers, etc. is not designed with the human soul in mind. Some office jobs go so far as to create a division of labor, where the worker becomes alienated from the central goal of his or her business and instead becomes a slave to the 9-5 lifestyle. In this world of coffee, paper, and emails, there is no room for the inner child. What makes the whole situation worse is that for many, there is almost no buffer zone between childhood and adulthood. Even if we are maturing through the whole process of high school and college, we maintain our inner child through the whole experience, naïve to the fact that with each passing birthday we come one year closer to drudgery of adult life.

I cannot say that I felt perfectly normal the day of the shoot. It might have been because I didn’t sleep enough the night before. It might have been because spring break had just begun. It might have been the way the wind was blowing. But it was probably because I was waiting at the downtown 86th St. station holding a giant metallic “Happy Birthday” balloon about 1.5 feet wide. At first I expected that I would get a lot of questions about what the balloon was for, but after about ten minutes of waiting and no questions, I realized that the giant letters were probably explanation enough. Not only did I have the balloon, but I was also carrying a bag full of party supplies: “Squawker” party blowers, a dog themed birthday card, and a birthday hat my mom dug up that can only be described as “high-end.”

Chiara eventually showed up, and I faced my first challenge of the day, getting the giant balloon through the New York subway system without problems. I somehow squeezed through the turnstile and we barely made the downtown 1 train. On the way down to Times Square, we discussed the motivation of the shoot.

CHIARA: Ok, so what do you want me to do?

ME: The story is this. You were going to have a birthday party, and you were really excited. But you can’t because you’ve got a ton of work and now you’re really disappointed and bummed.

CHIARA: So I’m sad?

ME: Yeah. I want you to be as bitter, tired and bored as possible.

CHIARA: You know you picked the worst person ever for this shoot?

It is true that of my various friends, Chiara is probably not the one that most people would have picked for a photo shoot where the model is supposed to be bored and tired. But I was afraid that if I had picked one of my more serious friends, I wouldn’t have been able to capture the same lost inner child that I knew I could find in Chiara.

We then made our way over to ESPN Zone and the Condé Naste Building, where my dad was letting us use his office. After an ear-popping ride in the elevator, we discovered that the balloon, which had been looking a little droopy on 42nd street, had suddenly returned to its original plumpness. We pooled our basic knowledge of science together, and determined that the difference in air pressure might have caused the balloons regeneration.

I hadn’t been in my dad’s office in a while, and one of the first things I realized when I stepped inside was how bad a space it was for two awkward teenagers with attention deficit disorder to do a photo shoot. We spent a good fifteen minutes looking at the various trinkets my dad has acquired over the years: countless framed New Yorker cartoons and covers, three bookshelves filled with various literature, a glass ball which makes everything look like an MC Escher painting, and a blow up paddle bearing Yassir Arafat’s face.

Sitting here now something registered with me. In those first fifteen minutes, searching through my dad’s office, we were displaying our inner child. Chiara and I are still young, and a glass ball that distorts our faces still amuses us. I wonder if I’ll be able to keep that state of mind my entire life, or if that is a part of us that always dies eventually.