Capturing You

Chapter 1: Happy BirthDEY

I was a photographer for the Cincinnati Bengals. It wasn't something I had set out to do. I was a landscape photographer at heart, for my mom was a painter and any time I thought of her, the image of her I had in my mind when I was a kid was of her sitting on her stool, moving her brush along a large canvas in the kitchen. She looked out our bay window and painted what she saw, or versions of what she saw, often able to transport herself to different parts of the world just from her imagination. When she died, I took it upon myself to set out to the places she imagined with her paintbrush and photograph them for her; any time I went somewhere, everything I captured went into a scrapbook tucked in my bookshelf.

But my dad, on the other hand, was a big sports fan — an understatement. He lived and breathed football, the quarterback's coach for McNeese State University in Lake Charles, Louisiana, where I was born and raised. He got that job as soon as I was born and unlike my memories of my mom, my early memories of him were fleeting. He was never really there, flitting from one place to the other, as fast and as intentionally as the player he directed for a living. I never held it against him as a kid because I'd had my mom there to fill in both parental spots. Only when she died did I ever get closer to my dad and learn what kind of man he was for myself; I could see myself in him just the same, a photocopy of his grit and ambition.

I landed this job on a whim. My dad was a friend of a friend of a friend of the Bengals public relations coordinator and he'd had enough push and shove to wedge me as close as he could to his dream quarterback, Joe Burrow. Burrow was older than me by a couple of years; I knew of him from his reign at Louisiana State, where he led the team to an undefeated season and finally, the national championship trophy a couple of years back. There wasn't a bar that you could go to that year without hearing his name or seeing his name on the menu used in some bizarre dish. Admittedly, as someone from the area and as a not-football-fan, it became stale. Quick.

So it was ironic that I was working for his team now, frequently taking pictures of him, whether posed in the studio or candid. My boss, the public relations and marketing coordinator, specifically told me to look out for Burrow when he was wearing those silly-looking designer sunglasses. Begrudgingly, I obliged; and so the beloved photo of him just before he entered the AFC championship against the Chiefs this year, that I took, became viral.

"So, how's Joe?" my dad asked me over a cup of coffee at my place.

     I glared at him past my laptop screen. I only then remembered that he was there; I had been so caught up in my work for the last five minutes I forgot he was visiting for my birthday. "You're on a first-name basis with him now?"

It was a dumb question as he was already on a first-name basis with Burrow, even before I began working for the team.

"Of course I am. It only makes sense to be when he's my daughter's best friend," he said. He had never met Burrow before. If he ever did, he would be more loquacious than I knew him to be, and the thought of him squealing like a little girl meeting his idol filled my stomach with dread.

"We're not best friends," I said matter-of-factly, shutting my laptop and coming around the kitchen counter to snatch his coffee cup from him, dumping it in the sink. He'd had too much of it. "We're... like co-workers. I barely know the guy."

"But you took that amazing photo. You know, the one where he's in that fuzzy sherpa, Cartier glasses, looking like... Joe Cool. Joe Brrrrr."

"Oh my God, stop," I retreated back to my laptop, shoving it in its case before dropping it off at my desk on the way to my couch. "I thought this was supposed to be my birthday. I don't want to talk about football on my birthday."