Say Cheese!...Or Not

This pic was taken at an IU party in Jan. '08

This past weekend I attended a bachelor party I had long planned for a best friend of mine. It was a great time – dinner at Harry & Izzy’s, Jay-Z concert and afterparty, hotel, plus messing with the people working at the hotel front desk – but this isn’t about the party itself so much as it is about the documentation of the party.

You see, every New Year I tell myself I’m going to take more pictures, but its uncommon for me to get urge to want to have to stop the movement of life to a capture a moment. I’m all for pictures for memories, but the idea of stopping to tell everyone to pose for a camera bother me a little.

I had left my camera in my SUV at the beginning of the party by accident. When I asked the fellas if I should retrieve it, they said no. One guy told me bachelor parties were things of legend and were only to be talked about to a certain point. No man takes pictures at his bachelor party (unless, ofcourse, you don’t mind your soon-to-be wife and her girlfriends finding out about Brandy, the stripper).

When I do take pictures I want them I want them to capture people in the process of living. Those are the types of pictures I love most. Not when someone’s posing. I don’t always care for the classic “look at me” pictures. The last thing I need is a picture of some pretty young thing stopping to suck in her stomach, stick her butt out, lift her breasts, and give pouty lips. That shit ain’t real. Where are the pictures of her dancing, flirting, and chatting about her new Jimmy Choo’s?

My point is this: I’m down for posing for a few pictures here and there to show who I was with, but excuse me if I don’t want to stop a good time to pose for a picture every five minutes. I say document life and what happens around, not how well you can pose. Save it for your magazine photo shoot.