How many smiles will $1.58 buy?
By Katrina Brooks
22 July 2008
About a month ago I visited the local farmer's market and captured some shots of these character's daily lives (See Colors and Characters ). A few days later, I showed some of my coworkers my photos. One of us happened across the website for the market and saw that the North Carolina Watermelon Queen would be making an appearance at the market the following month. Well, none of us had ever met a real queen so we scheduled the date and planned to take a long lunch break.
The day before the Watermelon Queen's appearance, I spent $1.58 to have 4x6 photos printed from my previous trip. At home I had some extra blank photo cards in a box so I pulled them out and put the farmers' portraits in them.
The next day at the market, I my coworker and I tracked down the subjects and gave them their photos. Reactions were as varied as the people on the cards. The man with the peaches smiled a big smile and mumbled something unintelligible. I could tell that he really was flattered. I thanked him for letting me take the photo, flashed a big smile and wandered to the next person. Earl, the guy with the "boiling taters", gave a hearty smile and asked all about the photo in a friendly manner. He said he would frame it. We dismissed ourselves after asking for another photo then went in search of the next person.
The next guy, well I wasn't sure if it was the right guy.... So my friend decided that it would be best to approach him in a joking manner and ask him "Hey, do you know this guy?!" That way if it was he, he'd affirm that it was and if it was his brother or someone else he'd think we were just asking. So she asked him her question... and then there was a long, long pause in which we were left stumbling over words trying to explain ourselves all the while thinking, "Oh CRAP!" Fortunately, he finally answered with a joyful, "When did you take this?" and then he said we had to show it to his daughter. We showed it to her and she smiled saying it was definitely her dad. He flashed a huge smile and a big thumbs up across the tables of produce.
While giving another man his photo, two guys started calling out to me. "Hey chica! You wanna take-a my piiicture?" That got my attention. As I turned around these two guys started hamming it up and making goofy poses with the cantalopes. I tried to get them to continue tossing the fruit like they were doing but all they wanted to do was flirt and get their piiicture taken. One guy asked "How do you say cheese? CHEESE!" and gave a huge cheesy grin.
After we finished with the two guy's glamour shoot, we walked back by the old man with the stroke. He waved to get our attention and to point out to us that he had placed the photo on top of a pile of tomatoes so everyone could see. That made me really smile.
At this point we were more than late getting back to work so we started heading to the car with bags of produce in our hands and sweat, well, everywhere. Before we could exit, a woman selling homemade bags and clothing asked us about our cameras. Twenty minutes later, she had filled us in on much of the last 50 years of her life including (but not limited to) how she met her husband, that he was a pilot and a Nikon shooter but now he is not well and can only shoot in his yard, her grandson's solo flight, and much, much more. We chatted with her a while then explained that we had to go.
The Watermelon Queen was nice but not really as interesting as the other people I've met there. I think I may have to return again soon!
More Photo Essays
More stories by Katrina Brooks
