Today was the last day for a friend at work; he was laid off. To give him a proper farewell, about ten of the guys took him to Hooters. I was the self-designated photographer.
For those of you outside of America, Hooters is basically a chain of restaurants for businessmen. Though its icon is a hooting owl, the icon is a decoy; "hooters" is American slang for "breasts." "Hooters girls," while seldom "stacked," wear outfits that push their assets out and up. They also wear short shorts. You can check out the restaurant's website at http://www.hooters.com . Anyway, I thought the lunch would take place inside, so I filled my Super Program with 400-speed color print film, and packed along a diffused flash, my SMC 35/2K lens (bought from Arnold Stark-the specimen shown in Boz's site), and my Zeiss Jena 20/2.8. As it turned out, the day was sunny and cloudless and we dined outside. "I would have used 160-speed film," I thought. But then I started shooting-wide table shots, deep table shots. I shot mostly at f/9.5, adding 2 stops compensation to bring out the detail in the three African Americans in our group. So the extra film speed came in handy; I was able to hand the camera to our waitress, confident that the shutter speed was sufficiently fast to neutralize any camera shake. I had a nice chat with a fellow at my table who has been studying the digicam market for two years, deciding what to buy. He currently shoots with a Canon A-1 (not AE-1). He's thinking of getting a Fuji S3 and using on it exclusively-are you ready?-a 28-300! The table next to ours was being served by one of the most breathtakingly loveliest brunettes I had ever set eyes on. (I was told that she also models.) But how could I explain to her-or to my wife-why I wanted to photograph her? Luckily, all eight waitresses gathered 'round my work friend and posed while I snapped away. My film will be developed by Dale Labs in Florida. I'm thinking I should have this roll returned to one of my buddies. The film will arrive home before I do, and I wouldn't put it past my wife to rip up the prints and break the CD. (We're talking about a woman who destroyed the only shots of me and my 1979 college girlfriend. The girlfriend and I were simply enacting a medieval court scene, in costume. I would have sent the photos to my brother or to the ex-girlfriend, who lives thousands of miles away.) Nonetheless, my lunch at Hooters was, shall we say, an uplifting experience.. Paul Franklin Stregevsky
