Set Fire To The Rain

Pyrophillia

Cassie

1997

Still green to New York, I pumped myself up every morning in my mirror, 'You're beautiful, you're fierce, and you're the next ginger Patrick Demarchelier."

Dream hard, work hard, and it'll happen one day....right?

Because it's New York and that trap I crawled out of in Muskogee was 1300 miles away.

I still hadn't got my photography portfolio off the floor, which meant there was still no way, not even in the burning free-for-all pit of hell that I would make it freelance on my own.

And so, I died every day of brutal discontent at my underpaid office job in the World Trade Center, Monday through Friday, 8 to 5, and sometimes 6, before walking across Liberty pedestrian bridge into Tribeca to spend my weekend doing what I love at Prints Charming Photography studio.

To them, I was still the new awkward "Okie girl", who kept asking people awkward questions like "Oh, I didn't see you there, do you need help with that?" or "I like naturey stuff, do you like naturey stuff? You ever been over to that Winter Garden Atrium?" or "Gosh, I can't get over how hurried and unconcerned people are here in Manhattan."

I didn't want to believe my country manners or being a woman in a majority male photography studio, or being "too friendly for editorial work" had something to do with me being stuck doing business headshots and graduation portraits all weekend, while being conveniently left out of the serious memos about calls for fashion shoots, corporate meetings, or celebrity weddings.

"You just have such a way with customer service, sweetie," my editor would say. "You kill it on the sales floor."

But as much as I lived for talking to people and capturing their stories through my lens, customer service wasn't getting me out there on the streets, or equal pay with the other guys to catch up on my rent.

And I was hungry...very hungry.

It was either go back to nothing in Oklahoma or make something out of equally nothing in New York.

And it so happened that around St. Patrick's Day, UNICEF partnered with Gap to sell this limited line of guy jeans to raise money for kids, and they were contracting photographers to shoot a calendar featuring said jeans modeled by men in uniform.

"Pass," our director tossed Gap's proposal aside at our monthly staff meeting. "That base pay is criminal."

My pen on my notepad came to a sudden, offended pause, slowly rolling a side-eye up to him.

Had he ever tried working here and living off bare minimum wage at $5.15 an hour?

GAP was offering a $2000 bonus for every 12 photos they selected for the months of their calendar.

And unlike the higher paid photographers around me, I didn't have the luxury to turn a break like this down.

"I'll do it," I volunteered.

Nobody looked at me.

"Now, as you all know, Donald Trump is holding a Press Conference about Alicia Machado and her weight problem," my editor went on, as if I never existed in that meeting. "I need somebody there. Harrison, you've done these interviews before. You're on deck-"

"Charlie," I spoke up louder. "I'll give it a shot."

"Thanks, but Harrison's got it covered."

"I mean the Gap project. I want to run it."