All the people that I meet don’t wear a frown

The trip to Paris was almost as much a non-event as the flight across the Atlantic. I was a bit more prepared for the sounds of a landing this time and hoped I looked very much more the seasoned traveler.

 © 2010 by Lilith Langtree & Rénae Dáºmas. This work may not be replicated or presented in whole or in part by any means electronic or otherwise without the express consent of the work’s Owner (copyright holder), with the exception of the private and non-commercial viewing by the reader who is also the end purchaser. ALL Rights Reserved, including but not limited to ownership of Characters, final content decision, and more. This is a work of Fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this story are fictional and any resemblance to real people or incidents past, present or future is purely coincidental. Any and all images which may be shown within this work are taken through license under Corel with the exception of the title image which is Photo Credit to Irina Sheik. No affiliations, involvement or gender assignations through the use of these or any images of the subject or subjects contained within those posted images is to be implied, intended or inferred.
An Aldoennetti & Langtree Original.

Not too long after we arrived we were in the Sheraton preparing for a little sleep, as if we did much of anything else during the flights. The hotel was a bit strange in that it seemed to be a part of the airport. Perhaps the airport was built and then a section scooped out so the hotel could be placed into it or perhaps the other way around with the airport being built around the hotel. It just seemed so strange to be able to walk directly from the one into the other.

This time there were two of us sharing a room as we have joined up with some more of Tanner’s as well as Emerson’s people. I found myself paired with Pam. I don’t know if that was a good thing or bad. As girls we get along quite well but since I have a secret to hide, the whole experience became a bit difficult for me not to mention a little unnerving since she doesn’t know my secret. At least we have two beds, but I don’t know how I would handle it if I should need to share at some point. If I can keep myself covered down below then It shouldn’t be too bad since as far as she is concerned I have the right equipment a bit higher.

This ‘little’ additional stress causes me to begin thinking my entire situation over once again and while the next five or six hours were a bit stressful, the dreams held nothing for me compared to some I have gone through. In fact the adventure of the trip so far has kept my mind occupied sufficiently that my usual near nightly self-recriminations and what if’s, managed not to raise their ugly heads.

The next morning when we rise, we took our showers then dressed once again for travel. Not that we are going much of anywhere since this is the day Tanner and Irina will collect the photographic and makeup equipment which will be traveling with us most of the rest of the trip. Pam and I joined Laura to go to breakfast then afterward wandered through the airport shops where I found a book printed in English which tells me about Paris. One more place which I will not have time to see but shall place on my list of places to visit when I have some money to do so. I do happen to take a few photos of Pam and Laura and the two women from Emerson’s entourage who have joined us, Kaitlyn and Elaine. With the two men, who have gone with Tanner and Irina, we are beginning to have the makings of a fairly large group.

“This is fairly small actually. We shall be joined by more local people in St. Petersburg. There will be another model and an interpreter plus two or three more who will help with the set up of equipment and act as local liaison. The list of a dozen places where we will be taking photographs has been approved and they will assist us in getting everything done smoothly. There will also be some drivers and a trailer in which we may change outfits. The clothing has been sent ahead and there are probably close to a hundred outfits to be modeled.”

I’m stunned, “Will we be modeling all one hundred at each location?”

This brings a chorus of laughter from the others.

“Oh no. But there may be some repeats and some outfits worn by different girls at different locations. This will provide enough diversity that they shall have many photographs from which to choose. There will also be times when more than one of us will be modeling together. Most of it is nearly static with just a little movement or repositioning. We will follow a script but with the ability to flow as necessary. The approved locations are expected to be fluid since there may be opportunities for slight changes allowing for better photographic opportunities.”

“Will they allow me to take photos for my scrapbook?”

“I don’t believe that will be a problem. They are trying to encourage tourism. Who knows, a photo of you taking a photo might even be used in the publicity for the clothing.”

“Oh I can picture that now. A photograph of me taking a photograph of Tanner.”

“There will also be a second photographer there. He will be taking photos for their board of tourism. If they like some of the poses they may use them to promote tourism for St. Petersburg in their world wide campaigns.”

I smile, “Do we receive a second fee?”

Again there is laughter.

“No, I’m afraid not.”

“I think I’ll accept being allowed to take my own photos as the second fee then.”

“Katrina, you’re priceless. I’ll need to remember this.”

“Will we have an opportunity to tour Paris?”

The other girls seem to be interested in this also.

“Not at this time, but coming back there will be two days and it could be arranged for a tour or two. You would be able to take pictures to your hearts content.”

“There was no time in England either. I’ve been reading the books I purchased there. I wish I’d had the opportunity to visit Edinburg and to tour parts of London. Again, no time.”

“Not going back either, I’m afraid. Perhaps during one of the subsequent trips. London is on the return junket but we will be modeling so there will be no time for a tour. You might be able to take some photos of the more important places but the actual informative tour would need to wait.”

“I suppose the entire four weeks will be like this?”

“Pretty much. There are only seven cities but each four to five day block will be busy. After St. Petersburg, we will be going to Moscow then back to Paris, down into Milan and Rome, over to Madrid and then back to London. Pretty much a whirlwind tour. While all of you are busy with your part of the game I’ll be busy finalizing the arrangements for the next leg of our trip. I started weeks ago and will finish when we arrive at London. There I’ll return to the US while the rest of you continue for a few days taking the remainder of the photographs. This has been a bit of a departure from our normal promotions.

We don’t usually have so much of the clothing line available at each of the locations. We are trying to open into two new markets and so wish to make a ‘splash’ showing our clothing as an international set rather than simply local. Photos taken in St. Petersburg and Moscow for example will be seen in many of the stores through the US and much of Europe. Rather than photographically placing the model over a background image we are shooting on site and thus hope this will garner additional publicity. We may even ask to see some of your photos, Katrina.”

“Mine?”

“Certainly. I’ve made the note that you will be taking digital photos and we may ask to see them since yours will be candid rather than posed and may include some of the support personnel. We could place small images into a corner of a poster which will show we actually shot the poster at the location seen and the effort we placed to bring our product to market. The buying public eats that up. It might help our sales. I doubt it could hurt sales.”

“After the tour is over I shall be placing the photos into folders on my computer. Tanner could copy the folders to a disk for you.”

“Thank you.”

Interesting. I didn’t know they might want my photos. I don’t know anything about taking pictures. I’m just interested in photos to help me remember the trip and the places to which we are going. So far I have nearly thirty but we haven’t gone anywhere that I could take nice pictures. Most of these are airports and the hotel room. Tanner wants a copy of all my photos too, so they are going to be popular. He helped me select my camera. It’s pretty simple but has a zoom and is fifteen Megapixels. He was thinking about one which was twenty two Megapixels but it was so complicated I didn’t want it. I just want something simple which will take nice photos. From what he was saying the more Megapixels the better but so long as I get some decent pictures I’ll be happy.

He talked to some friends of his after I selected the model I wanted. They were able to get me a better price on it so I purchased it through them. It took two extra days but I saved nearly eighty dollars. That’s nearly a quarter of the price of the camera and the savings allowed me to purchase the high speed memory card with the camera for the amount I would have spent for the camera alone. So far I’m pretty happy. I need to have him show me how to put the pictures in my computer. Maybe we can get together this evening and he could show me.

I snap a shot of the four girls sitting at the luncheon table and then ask Pam to take one with me sitting with them. She hates mechanical things but manages and then I show her the photo on the little screen. She wants to see how it looks when it is in the computer.

“Is that all there is to it? I could take pictures and they are ready to look at right away? What if I don’t like one? That’s part of what I hated about taking pictures. You had to pay for the ones you wound up not liking.”

At least I know that much about all this... “Oh, here look. I’ll just snap a picture of... Oh... that window over there. Now see? Here it is on the screen. If I decide I don’t like it then I can erase it like this and it’s gone. Where it was may be used by another picture. Once I move them into the computer and check that they are okay there, then I may erase them from the camera and start over. I purchased a more expensive memory card which allows me to take photos very quickly and it can hold somewhere near a hundred and eighty or a little more before I need to transfer them to my computer. I’m going to ask Tanner to show me how to transfer them later this afternoon or this evening.

I purchased my camera through some friends of his. He always gets his equipment through them and they saved me nearly eighty dollars on the price of the camera so I was able to afford the high speed memory card as well. It took several days and I was afraid I wouldn’t receive the camera before we left but it made it and so far I’m happy. I need to see how the pictures look on my computer.”

“What does that camera cost?”

“Three hundred ninety-nine in WalMart, but his friends were able to sell it to me for three twenty and the memory card for eighty-eight. I spent just ten dollars more than I would have spent for the camera alone. Until I see how the pictures look on the computer though, I don’t know if the camera was worth it. Tanner wanted me to purchase a camera with more Megapixels than this one but it was too complicated for me. I like simple... point and click.”

“Me too. That’s part of the reason I don’t take many pictures. Is it necessary to have a computer to use the camera?”

“I don’t know. I think you can just take the memory card and have the pictures printed from it, but I want to put them on my computer so I may look at them and decide which ones I want to keep. I’ve even learned how to crop the pictures so I may remove all the stuff I don’t need in the photo. Although I’m a little afraid of that since I might change my mind later.

Tanner said the best thing to do is save the pictures in a file which contains all the originals and then copy them to another file which may be edited to show only what I want in the photo. That way if I make a mistake or change my mind I may copy the original photo and try again without having lost everything and destroying my picture. His friends loaded some special software onto my computer so it will do that automatically for me. The originals will always be protected. If he shows me how to move the photos onto my computer I’ll show you this evening and we may see if they look very good.”

“That’s nice. Maybe if I like it, he could get me the same deal. Did you purchase your computer from them as well?”

“Yes. They didn’t save me anything on it but they did load photo imaging software onto it at no extra charge so I guess that would be worth something.”
~O~

It was late in the afternoon when the men returned. Pam had nearly finished with her book and I am well on my way toward finishing the first short book about London with the One about Paris next on my list. It was nearly suppertime when Tanner came to check on everyone and I manage to convince him to show me how to transfer the pictures so Pam and I may look at them.

“I told Pam about the great deal you got for me with the camera and computer. She wants to see how the pictures look but she might be interested as well. By the way, Emerson’s rep, Kaitlyn, says they would like a disk of my photos at the end of the tour. They may add small images from them onto the posters when they print them to sort of show we were all really there and not just using some back drops.”

I note Tanner gets a funny expression on his face when I tell him all this.

“Now don’t you go thinking about charging them for my photos. I already said they could have them. After all, it won’t be like I’m giving them free shots of the models in the outfits. It’s mostly going to be the surrounding area and some of the support people. Sort of me taking pictures of the people taking pictures or who help set up the equipment. I probably won’t have time to take pictures while we are actually modeling, though that might be fun once or twice.”

“You really shouldn’t let them have them for free, Katrina. They’re taking advantage of you. I’ll talk with her and see what they’re really after. Anyway, bring your computer and camera over here and I’ll show you how to transfer the images. It’s pretty easy with the software my friends loaded.”

Tanner walks me through the process, which is fairly simple. “Bring up the program, insert the memory card, the program will recognise the card and automatically move the photos into a folder which will be incremented by date.

That folder becomes the original or master file and the program will copy the files into a second folder for you to process for your scrapbook. If you mess up editing one of your photos, delete it and tell the program to recopy. It will check for any file from the original folder which no longer exists in the processing folder and recopy it so you may edit it again from the start. It’s pretty foolproof and that way your original photos are untouched and protected. If you want to copy the originals to a disk at the end of the tour, put a disk into the optical drive and go to the program telling it you want to copy the originals to the disk. It’s pretty easy. If you need more than one disk it will automatically ask for a second or third disk.”

“Couldn’t I just put a DVD disk in and copy everything to it”

“Uh... No. The program won’t support that format even if your optical drive will.”

“So if I take a lot of photos, I’ll need multiple CD disks if my original’s file is over 700 Megs?”

“Unless the compression used is enough to allow it all to fit the disk. You won’t know until you try, so have a number of disks on hand just to be safe.”

“Great. So now that everything is transferred and copied then I tell the program I want to process the photos and we may look at them?”

“Yep. It pretty easy. Have fun.”

“Thank you, Tanner.” I give him a quick kiss.

He looks at me and at Pam, then smiles and wiggles his eyebrows, “How about another one for the road?”

Pam laughs and I give him a light tap on the arm but raise up to him and give him another kiss, cementing the fact we are engaged in Pam’s eyes which means everyone else will know it in short order.

Tanner leaves our room, “Remember supper is in forty five minutes. I’ll come knock on the door.”

Pam and I began looking at the photos. She was quite impressed with the detail and the depth of the colour. I’m impressed because the pictures look so much better than they do on the camera’s little screen. Somehow I blow one of the pictures up six or seven times and we are just beginning to notice a little loss of detail. I think this may have been a great purchase.

We looked through the roughly forty photos which were taken and the ones we took downstairs a little earlier look great. Pam’s sold. She’s all fired up about getting a computer and digital camera so she may take photos of the flowers and landscapes which always interest her. I’ll talk with Tan about it. Maybe he can get her a deal too.

Shutting down that program, I call up my favorite photo program which is very compact and allows me to look at many different formats. It doesn’t have much in the way of editing ability but it can provide me with thumbnails of all the photos in the manner of looking at a slide box. And it can allow me to do a slide show of the photos or to examine one in great detail. My only problem now is to find where the photo program hides the images so I may look at them. After half an hour I finally find them and start looking through the photos. Now I’m really impressed.

This program doesn’t really process the images so much as it does a really good job of displaying them on the screen. The colour isn’t quite as pronounced as it is in the photo program that did the transfer from the memory card but the detail in the images is fantastic. A knock at the door reminds us it is time for supper so I put my computer and camera away after returning the memory card to the camera. Pam and I go out to join everyone at supper. I’ll look at the pictures some more when we get back to the room.
~O~

Pam and I return from supper, happily stuffed. Yes, we were careful what and how much we ate but being stuffed is a relative thing.

I get my computer out and am soon into looking at the images again with my photo program. I’m still stunned at the detail in these images. For a simple point and shoot camera I’m now VERY happy with my purchase. My gosh, just look. I can read the street sign at the corner a block away. Well... yes, of course I have to magnify the image but... even so... to have enough detail I can read the sign? How long have digital cameras been out?

I look at the image of Pam and the other girls and magnify the image until I’m looking at part of her face. Moving the image slightly so I am looking into her eye I hit magnify one more time and see something. I hit it once more and realise I’m looking at a highly detailed reflection of something behind me and that reflection is off her eye!

Quickly I check the size of the file which is producing this image... 37.78 Mb. Next I open the same picture in the photo program which Tanner’s friends put on my computer. The same unprocessed file is only 2.96 Mb. That seems strange. I open the file and expand it until I’m looking at Pam’s eye again. No detail in the reflection. In fact, I’m hard put to notice a reflection. Something isn’t quite right in photoland. I go to the one with my street sign and expand it. Good luck recognising the blip as being a street sign much less being able to read it.

I’m beginning to get a nasty feeling and somehow I think Tanner’s friends who sold me my camera and computer might be the same ones who were at the restaurant and the farm. I don’t know if I should tell him I know or if I should just be quiet about it and go along. For now, I’ll just keep quiet until I decide for certain. I close their photo program and go back to mine. I magnify her eye one more time and can actually make out lettering in the reflection. The lettering is backwards... duh... okay brainy, it’s a reflection after all, it should be reversed.

I flip back through my photos to the ones I took through the windows at Heathrow. Far in the background I see the jet which was landing. I begin enlarging the image until I am looking at one of the windows where I may see a child’s face partially hidden back where they were leaning forward to watch as they landed. There is enough detail that I could probably use this photo to identify the child.

Somehow, I don’t think this is a simple fifteen Megapixel camera. They must have done something to it. My three hundred and twenty dollars couldn’t have purchased something with this kind of image quality. Either they didn’t expect me to realise it could do this or they accidentally sent me the wrong camera, in which case I could be in a lot of trouble. That decides it for me. I have to tell Tanner.

to be continued