Everything Has Changed

Ch. 8

~Harry~

"Okay Liam, move more towards your left. No, your other left dipshit," I call out from behind the lens of my camera. I smile at the sound of Louis' laugh from the middle of the group. Liam proceeds to move in the correct direction and I start snapping pictures in quick succession. "All right boys, keep your formation but don't look too serious, then I'll let you do whatever you want," I instruct, immediately getting a response from the group. They break from their professional three-row line-up and start leaning on each other and making each other laugh.

I start snapping more pictures, getting as many angles as I can. Then, when I give them the go-ahead to break formation entirely, the boys move in quick succession. One after the other, they the teammate they're closest with and jump on their back or mess with their hair. Liam and Luke make their way to Louis and hoist him up in the back row of the picture. I'm able to catch a beautiful candid of all the boys laughing and Louis quickly latching onto his two friends with his eyes squinted in laughter. Right below Louis is Oli and his bright red hair, standing with his arms outstretched to his hides, mouth opened in a mock roar. The rest of the team is equally chaotic.

I hold my finger down on the shutter button to get as many candids as possible until I'm satisfied with the amount I'll have to choose from. "Okay, now we're going to move on to the solo portraits. We're going to do this in alphabetical order, so when you're not with me, do whatever you want. As long as you don't mess up your uniforms or make yourselves sweaty, I don't care what you do," I instruct, eliciting a few laughs from the crowd, the loudest being Louis'.

The coach hands over the roster and I call out the first person, "Zachery Allen, let's go!" He hastily makes his way over towards me and I start positioning him on the spot we've chosen for portraits. Louis and I decided on shooting from one of the penalty arcs to allow for one of the goals to be in the background. With the poses we decided on, it's a quick and easy shoot. First, we start with the traditional standing with the ball under the player's dominant foot, arm crossed in front of the chest. Then, I have him sit on the ball legs bent with his arms sitting limply on his knees. Then I instruct him to look off to the side and I start snapping photos. For the third photo, I ask him to set the ball down facing the goal and act like he's about to kick the ball into the goal. We have to do this one a few times over so I have a few candids to choose from, but I don't focus on it too much. Then for the last photo, we've agreed to ask the players to do whatever skill in their favorite and I'll get a candid of it.

I make my way down the roster and take pictures for hours before it's Louis' turn. He comes up to me wiggling his eyebrows and trying to make me laugh. "Hello mister photographer, are you ready to make me look pretty?" he teases as he takes his spot in front of my camera.

"I'm not so sure you need me for that, but I'll try my best," I say while shaking my head and focusing my camera on him. I watch in HD as his face flushes red and I bite my bottom lip to hide my smile.

"Do you flirt with all of your models?" he banters and I smile even more.

I lower the camera a bit so he can see my face before I say, "Only the pretty ones." His jaw drops and I take that moment to kick the ball over to him so he can start posing. When the ball hits his feet, he pulls himself together and immediately takes on a more professional face.

Between poses, we banter back and forth, mostly him teasing me for being unprofessional. His shoot takes a little longer than the others, but I don't particularly mind. Seeing as Louis is the team captain, he gets a fifth photo where it's taken from his side to put his captain's band front and center. With the ball under his arm and his head towards me, I take his last pictures of the day.

I quickly click through his pictures to make sure they came out well before I send him off with the rest of the team. "Okay captain, you're done, send Oli over. I might just kiss him for being the last person on the team. I'm tired and I haven't sat down for hours," I casually ramble while collecting the ball and placing it next to my feet on my mark. I look up to Louis when I don't get a response.