[Photo Journal] Angie Luvara: Journal #4 – The Bathroom

Subject: Mookie Jones

Camera: Nikon D7000

Location: Men’s Bathroom, The Green Bean, Greensboro, NC

Date: April 2011

I’m sure you can already tell by the location that this photo has an awesome story behind it. Mookie was on tour with K.R.I.T., and they had a pretty free day in Greensboro, so we set out to do a photo shoot. I lived about an hour away, and wasn’t super familiar with Greensboro, so I relied on some friends to point me in the direction of some good photo shoot locations. It just so happened that we were really close to my favorite Greensboro coffee shop (I can pretty much name an awesome coffee shop in any city. Part of nomad life is knowing the best spots for free wifi), so I took Mookie there to use the bathroom for his outfit change.

Now, I had been in this coffee shop several times, but, obviously, never in the men’s bathroom. When Mookie opened the door to go change, we both saw the walls, looked at each other, and, without saying a word, knew we’d be using those walls for the shoot.

After Mookie changed, we took a few seconds to decide how we were going to do a shoot in such an awkward, and functional portion of this coffee shop. Personally, when it comes to photography, I usually like to shoot and ask for forgiveness later. If you ask permission, they can say no. If you do it and get caught, you still have the photos. (I take no responsibility for anything that happens to you if you choose to use this method!)

So, bam, we decided to just do it, and apologize if we got caught. But then came the important decision: to lock the door or not to lock the door. See, if we locked the door, people would hear two voices in there, and probably automatically assume something WAY more inappropriate was going down. So, we decided to leave the door open.

Somehow, we made it through that shoot with only one random dude opening the door, and he rushed off quickly (and awkwardly!) when he saw me and my camera. I’m pretty sure he didn’t see Mookie at all, because he was in the corner of the wall that the door was on. I laugh every time I think about what could have possibly been going on in his head when he saw me, alone, in the men’s bathroom, with a camera. Best part, not only did we have an awesome background for this shot, but we got some of their amazing hot chocolate on the way out!

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