(It's almost funnier if I don't explain, but what the heck!)

So Chris found this vintage 80s British Knights tracksuit at the Salvation Army, and he needed to take some pictures of it to put up on EBay. (We're counting on those rich hip-hoppers from the UK with their Old Skool pride!) I had found this incredible Fourth of July dress, and needed to take some pictures for Etsy. I got it in my head that this dress could make the Front Page if Etsy does a 4th of July theme, and the wheels started turning. My original idea involved a backdrop of my friend's very all-American Big Red Barn, but I couldn't go over there cause she had some relatives in town and it was just going to be too hard to explain to everyone what the heck I was doing down there. (I didn't want to use the usual "field of flowers" background cause I felt like it would be too distracting with the busy pattern of the dress.) Chris also needed something other than a wussy hillside of daisies to sell his tough, street-savvy duds.

So we set off into the Big Bad World to try to get the Fourth of July Dress shot. Well, it was just One Of Those Photoshoots where nothing looked right… not the light, not the background, not the look on my face… nuthin! Or so it appeared on the camera screen. Sometimes this happens, even with the coolest dress, and it is unbelievably frustrating. We ended up doing shoots against five- count em, FIVE!- backdrops, trying to get a decent shot.

The longer we were at it, with me barking directions to Chris and grabbing the camera every three seconds, the more authentically "street" he became. By the time we did his track suit pics in this industrial looking parking lot, he looked positively tough! I was worn out and feeling like a very mussed up patriotic pinup, which was, I realized, the perfect time to take a shot of the two of us:

Irony of ironies– when I uploaded the pics to the computer, where things always look a bit different, do you know which shot I liked best of the dress? The VERY first picture. Egads! All that for… well, was it really nothing? We got a good laugh out of it (after many tears), and we ended the whole night with Rice Dream Moon Pies and Nutty Bars from the Co-op, so all's well that ends well!

Here it is… front page, come on and love me!