Something that I find interesting about this image is that the subject of the photo, the lifeguard, Kate McAllister, is not remotely centered in the image.  It feels like she is centered.  It seems like she is centered given that the angle is straight on and the cabana that she’s sitting in front of is perfectly centered in the image, but she herself is not centered.  She’s not even close.  Things like that always intrigue me.

The idea for this shoot was something much different than the final result.  My idea was to have an incredibly bored lifeguard watching two kids trying to drown each other.*  I loved the comedic juxtaposition between the two energies.

* They weren’t actually going to be trying to kill each other, just participating in horseplay that should have been snuffed out, that wasn’t.

I met Kate the day of the shoot and she asked me, “What do you want me to do?”  I said, “Can you sit on the lifeguard chair and look bored?”  She laughed and replied with something to the effect of, “I have been practicing all summer.”  I then told her that if she got bored during the shoot, that was good too, but just to hold her pose and be bored.  She graciously agreed.

It turned out though that having kids in the pool was too cluttered.  There was also an issue with the depth of field, but the real issue was that it just didn’t work.  You can see that here.

Once I got the kids out of the pool, the shot came alive.  It’s always weird when removing the focus of a photo makes it come alive, but here we are.  Somehow, having Kate “guarding” an empty pool seems even more apropos.

Kathleen Braun and Barbara Corrie were last minute additions to the shoot and give the photo a sense of gravitas and balance I think it was lacking otherwise.  I went in aiming for a brash, loud image.  It didn’t take long before I realized that this was actually a quiet, lonely image and, man, did I get that!