Smile and Say “Cheese”

As mentioned in a previous post, Bill was very much into photography. Bill had a camera everywhere we went. We had reels and reels of home movies, slides and photographs. Unfortunately, Bill did not always use his talent in a positive way. No matter what we did together, he had his camera and was snapping pictures.

I’m sure there were more instances than this particular one but it’s the one that stands out in my mind most. I recall being in his room and him handing me a pair of his underwear and telling me to put them on. I did as I was told and was then instructed to sit on his bed while he took pictures of me. At one point he told me to smile and say “cheese”. I remember feeling uncomfortable and humiliated. I wondered what he was going to do with pictures like that.

I have no idea what became of those pictures but I think it’s safe to assume that he was not the only one viewing them. Fortunately, the digital age had not yet arrived so I am hopeful that they are long gone.

I know that he was still photographing girls both under and over 18 years of age many years after he took those pictures of me. I was about 18 years old when Bill brought some photos in to show my great-grandmother of a young woman who appeared to be somewhere between 16 and 19 years of age. She asked him what the pictures were for and he said that the young woman wanted to be a model and needed some pictures for her portfolio. When she asked him how much he got paid to do that, he said that he did it for free because she was a nice girl. I got sick to my stomach when he said that because I knew that that young woman paid a price for that portfolio….nothing came free.

~ by Isis on July 7, 2011.