So I did what I always do. I took three aspirin a few days ago, and then I took another three the day before yesterday. (I don’t trust Tylenol, Advil, et. al. I like my aspirin and it never bothers my stomach).
The pain went away. But then last night, as I was watching some dumb TV show, I sneezed, hard. And I reached for the Kleenex as usual as it began to drip, but this time it was blood. Bright arterial blood. Drip, drip, drip. Not quite a torrent, but it wouldn’t stop. No doubt all that aspirin had conned all the platelets into going to a bar and then sleeping it off, because they sure were absent. It was ice compresses and nose pinch for about an hour until it finally stopped.
Well, that was fun, said I. Hope that’s the end of that.
I got about three hours sleep, because this morning Brigitte and I were due to do our first-ever photo shoot. Yes, you read it right. About a week ago, the owner of Devi, a posh Indian place on Crescent (which I reviewed a while back) needed some photos for his food, and had liked the ones I did for the review. So at seven I was up, poring through my Digital Rebel manual, setting up fake shots and trying to get that “Gourmet” magazine food-porn thang. Trying to figure out what “aperture” and “bracketing” were dilly-dallying about.
At any rate, at 11 or so Brigitte and I showed up at Devi on a sunny, cold winter’s day and I set up my stuff. Brigitte brought a bunch of props, like placemats and cool white plates and cool cutlery. Hell, we’ve never done this before! But we acted like a veteran team. I brought my laptop so I could check the “rushes”, so to speak, and my tripod, and we set up near the window. The light wasn’t that great, but it was all we had, and although I built a makeshift light box this morning I decided not to use it because it looked too silly.
So we set up and I did a few lighting test shots and then the food started to come out. I’d gotten into about three of the fifteen or so dishes we had to do when I felt an enormous sneeze coming on. You can guess the rest. I had to do at least three dishes one-handed, pinching my nose with tissues and an ice cube stuffed up it so blood wouldn’t get anywhere while the horrified owner looked on. It’s hard to operate a camera on a tripod with one hand; this is now an established fact.
Luckily, my camera ran out of battery and I’d forgotten my spare, so Brigitte had to drive home and get it, so I was off the hook for the half hour the bleeding took to stop.
But the prop wine and beer flowed and we finished up and I've just spent two hours editing the 115-or-so photos, and I was amazed at how well they turned out.
By the way, if you’ve never been to Devi, the owner, name of Praveen, is a super guy and he needs customers. The place isn’t as expensive as it appears to be and it’s spectacular food. Tell him I sent you and I bet you he’ll comp you something or other!
Anyway, here are some of the pics that my bleeding nose allowed to be taken:
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