This past weekend, two friends and I decided to go to the Butterflies go Free exhibit at the Insectarium last weekend, on one of Montreal’s first warm, sunny days. Apparently we weren’t the only ones looking to take advantage of the nice weather – an enormous line stretched from the ticket booth past granite benches and fountains almost all the way to the pathway leading from the front gate.
Earlier that week, I met a photographer in the old port for a photoshoot, and he expressed interest in doing another shoot sometime. When my two friends, who are also models as it so happens, expressed enthusiasm equal to mine about going to the exhibit, I thought, why not kill two birds with one stone? I invited the photographer to come along with us and take a few candids with a beautiful backdrop. This, apparently, was a big mistake.
We scheduled to meet him at the gardens at 2pm, but we were running about 15 minutes behind. “That’s alright,” he said via text, “I’m running on the same schedule.” This was not entirely true, we found out later when we arrived – around 2:15. We spent 3o minutes waiting in the enormous line, but by the time we got to the front, he still had not shown face. I bought a ticket for him and ended up leaving it at the entrance to the exhibit under his name. After another 15 or 20 minutes, he texts me that he is in the exhibit, having picked up the ticket I left for him. “Okay, we’ll come find you,” I responded.
We found him, looking like a lost child holding a piece of foreign equipment that he didn’t fully understand, and proceeded out of the greenhouse and towards the insectarium. “So what kind of pictures did you have in mind?” I asked him. He shrugged. “Well, feel free to just snap away or instruct us for poses and such,” I offered. He stared at me, a little open-mouthed. My friends looked at each other, then at me, and giggled. “I should have brought my own camera,” Betty murmured.
The rest of the visit proceeded in a similar fashion. The three of us looking around at the butterflies enjoying ourselves, but constantly glancing over our shoulders to see if our guest would ever actually start snapping his lens. I tried again, “You know, you can just start taking pictures whenever.” “It’s too crowded,” he said. “Well, just take lots, then you can keep the good ones and delete the bad ones.” “That’s too much work,” he said staunchly. After that effort, I didn’t say anything again.
Betty took a few photos with her iPhone (surprisingly good resolution!), and I took a video or two on my phone. The three of us were chatting after he left, “I’ve never met a photographer who didn’t take pictures!” Chelsea said incredulously. “Yeah, I don’t get it, I mean, his portfolio was really nice, but I don’t think he’s used to photographing models,” I said. “Regardless,” Chelsea replied, “he didn’t even take photos of the butterflies.“
