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It's about a photographer, who is a rookie.

Posted in Character on Oct 26, 2022

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✍️ 34 stories

Gordon, Surnamed Parks

Submitted to Contest #14

Long orange shadows flung themselves against the beat-up bricks of Fort Scott. The bloodred sun disappeared slowly from the sky and inky ghosts of night took its place. The stars, mostly blotted out by the street lights, peeped around the lightning bugs that dotted the sky. Two young boys walked, shoulder to shoulder, down Penn Street. One was white, with red hair and red eyes and a hangdog look that marked him as a troublemaker. The other was darker—dark enough to be called black, in this time of segregation—with short-cropped curly hair an...

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Timing

Submitted to Contest #14

Rich listened to the man on the phone and then said, “Graven images? No sir. We are a photographic service, not a funeral home.” Rich wrote something on his pad. “Oh, I see. You are getting married but want no graven images? Got it. Well, here at Silva, we do photography.” Rich gestured to Pete in the vein of ‘Where do these weirdos come from?’Pete was waiting to discuss his first wedding shoot. It had been a huge break for him. He looked around the office. A large light table, for examining negatives, stood against one wall. Another wall wa...

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Le photographe

Submitted to Contest #14

BEEP! BEEP! SMACK! “Ugh” groaned the teenager and he rolled out of bed. After stumbling his way to the kitchen and ignoring the near-distant yelling of his parents outside, which at this point had become like white noise to him, he found the remains of a pop-tart and began to start his day. His mother then came into the kitchen saying, “Let me make you some eggs instead”, as she rubbed small tears from her eyes. David’s parents did not have much and the divorce would soon drain them of nearly everything. David’s feelings towards his parents ...

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Her First Taste...

Submitted to Contest #14

She hit the ground hard and the wind was driven out of her. Carpet scraped her cheek and her arms were pulled behind her in a tight grip. She felt him kneel down, his free hand frantically snatching at her pockets. He found her phone and ripped it out. She heard the sound of it cracking against the wall and then he was bent over her, a wolf with hot breath and no mercy. She tasted sweat as a hand came down on her mouth. She struggled and kicked, but he was so heavy. He was trying to reach down to her throat, she could feel him leaning, tryin...

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Some Publicity

Submitted to Contest #14

It was a sunny day, and sunny days were not good for photography. Well, of course, they were pretty ideal for taking photos, but the problem that Mattie was having was that sunny days brought everyone else out as well, which made it hard to get any shots that didn’t have people lurking in the background. That, and they had a habit of scaring the birds away, which made it fairly pointless for him to even be here. It was almost midday, and he’d gotten maybe a dozen decent pictures of the ducks and swans, but now the crowds were out in full, al...

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All for a shot.

Submitted to Contest #14

All for a shot.“Don’t look on this as hazing. This is to see if you are up to it. I know the consensus of opinion is that it’s hazing, but it isn’t. However, most fail at the outset and I want you to not waste my time.If you cannot take 24 hours on the rebreather, I doubt you’ll be much use to me.” Walter, Alex’s intended employer, was an expert photographer who was very particular who he employed, but would choose only those ‘shutterbugs’ that had that ‘extra’ whatever that was.       Wildlife photogr...

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A Bit Shaken Up

Submitted to Contest #14

"I mean, they aren’t terrible,” Sam helpfully supplies.Sighing, I brush my bangs from my eyes and lean deep into my seat, away from the computer. “They are all tilted or blurry, and you didn’t even look at them. You don’t need to make me feel better, I know what quality is.Biting his lip, Sam looks up from his textbook, “C’mon Glynn, they can’t all be bad,” he leans over my shoulder, “See, this one’s pretty clear.”“Yeah, a clear shot of my thumb. Just admit it, this is as hopeless as I said it would be. I just can’t hold the camera stea...

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Her First Murder

Submitted to Contest #14

It’s her first murder. It is supremely important that she gets this right. Fiddling with the camera’s ISO has never left her so conflicted; a detail so seemingly trivial amid a situation so evidently dire.“Photographer!” a detective yells from around the corner.Despite it being her literal job, a brief flash of irritation rises up within her at each moment she is summoned by a detective. Every time someone places an evidence marker, she gets to hear any number of variations of the same snippy demand. Six weeks on the job, 27 cases cover...

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A Misperceived Moment

Submitted to Contest #14

This is a joke, Kyle thought to himself. It has to be. That’s all there is to it! As Kyle stood in the middle of the long stretch of cracked-ground desert, he shook his head in defeat as he watched the sun continue to set in the west – the sun just beginning to kiss the horizon. “Simple assignment, my ass,” he muttered to no one in particular.It had seemed like a simple enough assignment for him to get his feet wet with as a rookie photographer for the local paper he had just started with – find and photograph an example ...

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Dead Lens

Shortlisted for Contest #14 ⭐️

He crept forward, feeling the sinuous body of grass brush against his arm. Above the dark heavens, a gibbous moon hung, serving as the only grim guide into this forsaken place. Rightfully, the absence of light would have inhibited his camera any ability to capture images. Any photographer could point that out to him. Even his eyes had trouble navigating the path that lay ahead, despite the fact that his pupils had been fully dilated. Shutter speed. Aperture. Rules of the third. Those words echoed in his mind, remnants of a lecture so lo...

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Capture the moment

Submitted to Contest #14

”Shannen, you always take pictures of your food!” I turn to look at my sister, “D, food is ART. You just don’t get it.” My little sister rolls her eyes and playfully laughs. I’m the type of woman that fills up with joy when I see beautiful food. I want to take pictures of the food in order to show it off. What runs through my mind when I position the camera towards a plate of food: ”I could post it on Instagram or Facebook hmmm...” I do post these pictures for the likes and to find other people who appreciate amateur photography. It bothers...

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Racing Line

Shortlisted for Contest #14 ⭐️

Fawn pushed the foot of the monopod into the soft turf and, gripping the slender pole tightly, bent to squint through the viewfinder. Standing on the outside of the bend, just back from the protective straw bales, she had the crest of the hill about a third down from the top of the frame. It wasn't the safest place to stand: if something went wrong the car would be coming straight at her, but she'd been doing this a while. She figured she could tell if a car was too fast or the driver struggling for grip, and she trusted her ability to leap ...

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Click, Flash and it was Done

Submitted to Contest #14

The day was unexceptional except for closing a huge deal with a famous investor.He could have stolen my invention; I didn’t have the capital to pursue him in the courts. I was acting on faith (I know, stupid, right?). J. P. Moneybags was true to his word and decided to stump up the monstrous capital needed to bring my invention to production.He gets 95% of the profits, and I get 5%. But that's not as bad as it sounds because the patent is in my name.5% of a lot of money is, well, a lot of money.My needs are small, but my curiosity is insatia...

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Sub Silentio

Submitted to Contest #14

The mid-70s Plymouth Duster idled at the McDonald’s drive-thru with three cars stacked ahead of it in the queue. Jeff sat in the passenger seat. He broke into a cold sweat.“We could have gone to the North Pier Mickey D’s, but this one has better fries. They probably change the fry oil more often, you know. Then again, North Pier has colder soda. Something about the ice, I guess,” Roger said from the driver’s seat. “Hey, you alright kid?”Jeff shook his head and said, “Oh, yeah, sure, I’m just a little hot.”Roger rolled down his window, n...

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Natural talent

Submitted to Contest #14

1“John, I really, really need you. You know I wouldn't ask otherwise. It's an emergency!”I scratched my beard and kept my mouth shut. Lenny was a good friend - or at least an old friend, having latched on me around second grade and never leaving me alone ever since - but he was so full of shit sometimes. Most of times. His mouth was big enough to sequentially get him into trouble and out of them without any pause whatsoever, but I still had a never dying hope to exhaust him with noncommittal silence. We'd known each other for almost twenty y...

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