Everybody who knows me knows that I very rarely have photos of myself. Personally, I’ve just never seen myself as a photogenic type of guy. If I’m being honest, there is absolutely nothing picturesque about me…and I’m OK with that. There was a time where I felt a bit differently but that all changed back in 2004, when I did a photoshoot that, in hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have done. That brings me to this week’s moment in the Flashback Friday series: the thugged out photoshoot.
How I first came across this moment? It all started in June 2004, when I was paying my Sprint phone bill in Valdosta. There was a Portrait Innovations a couple of doors down and I saw they were running a special. I walked in to get some more details and ended up liking the price. I scheduled a shoot. I showed up for my appointment a week later and we ended up doing 3 different poses. I purchased a package of about 40 photos, including a few collages.
What it meant to me then? At the time, I was into my bandana under the cap phase. I rocked my Ohio State cap in 2 of the poses and my black Adidas cap in the other. I went with red and black as far as the bandanas went. I thought the photoshoot was actually pretty good. But when I shared them with my Moody AFB CES Customer Service colleagues, I got ridiculed to no end. I posted a couple on my old BlackPlanet page and some visitor to my page snatched them up and started putting all kinds of hilarious captions on them. I remember one of them being “thug guy thinks of fried chicken while posing for an official photo”. My biggest mistake was sharing the captioned pictures with my crew on the MilitaryVibes forums. Man, they gave me the business. I was a good sport about it but it took about 5 weeks for that to die down. After that, I told myself that I would never do a solo photoshoot ever again because I couldn’t be certain of how it would play out.
What it means to me now? All of these years later, I find myself LMAOing at those pictures. I can’t believe I seriously took them. I’m going to make sure I save them so that my kid can see what kind of person his or her father was when he was younger.
