Only A Kiss - boyxboy

Chapter 11 - A new day has come

It was my first day at my very first job since I had finished College. Well the first one that counted. I had taken a gap year after finishing my degree in Photography, specialising in Sports Photography. I had then held boring office jobs for a few more years, building up a portfolio on the side. You are good at what you do when you finish College, but you don't have loads of real world experience and you can't just walk into a decent job.

During my travels, I would just keep an eye out for any matches/games/competitions going on and turn up to offer my services for free. I enjoyed it more when I would just stumble upon something, like local Brazilian children playing 5 a side soccer, or surfers at the beach in Hawaii. I continued photographing local games at weekends and evenings when I could, whilst holding down various boring office jobs.

Then my dream came along. S. C. Williams, a quite successful businessman that I was a little unfamiliar with (if I may admit), had just taken over a run down magazine company in Boston with the intentions of turning it's failing ass around and making something of it. He wanted all new people from scratch.

He had not interviewed me himself as there were a lot of people to take on board, but I had got the job of Sports Photographer none the less. Apparently he wanted quite unknown researchers, journalists, photographers and such so that he could mould the new magazine into his own personal vision.

The magazine was to be some sort of family friendly, lads mag. It was to be packed with mens sports, culture, fashion, health and a little bit of womanly advice to the terminally clueless men in love. I loved the idea. Most lad mags were either smut filled with half naked chicks, mens fitness and health only, or just purely sports stuff. Nothing offered a combination of everything, minus the smut.

The intentions of the magazine was to start small scale in Boston and if it took off, relocate to Manhattan and go big. I did think at first that my style of photography wasn't mainstream enough to fit in to this idea, or be sell-able to the masses. But I was assured that S.C. Williams wanted a whole new and different approach.

Apparently my photography really showed the beautiful side to sports that most can't capture - stuff that would inspire some and portray what the sport was all about to others. Maybe this was because my images weren't always the visibly important moments, but also crucial decision making moments and faces of enjoyment and excitement.

I really did enjoy what I did. I felt completely at home with a camera in my hands, looking around for the perfect thing to snap. While everyone was looking at who was in the lead in a pool, I would work out who was biding their time and get the snap of the most crucial take over that others would miss. Or I would snap the face of a happy and anxious team-mate when they realise their buddy is about to net the ball. I would even go as far to deliberately miss the winning touchdown, and focus on an unsuspecting couple celebrating with a hug and a cheer. Sometimes the spectators reactions said it all.

So now I was heading into the building I would be working in for some time. It wasn't much to look at, but it was pretty huge and undergoing renovations. I was greeted by the receptionist and told to head up to the top floor and join the others.

The top floor of this place was huge. It was all one open planned room with an office at the end. I'm guessing this was the boss' floor going by the size of it and everyones general chit-chat making their way towards my ears. Magazine pages of all different kinds were filling the walls. An odd choice but I'm sure the boss had his reasons...

At that moment someone came out of the office and caught our attention. S. C. Williams. He was a tall, well built guy dressed quite casually and not at all businessman-like. I'd say he was an inch or so taller than my 6'2' frame, and a tad more built. I often took part in some of the sports I photographed, and I had kept up swimming from school into College so he must have been really athletic to be bigger than me.

'Hello ladies and gentlemen - gosh I sound so formal! Hi guys. I'm your boss, but you can call me Simon. If this magazine is to work, I want complete trust and comfortableness between the lot of us. Any problems and you can come straight to me, no questions asked. I am taking leave from my other business's to give this a good head start so you have all my attention, unless disaster strikes elsewehere of course.' He laughed at this and we all loosened up. So he was a cool boss - I struck it quite lucky I guess.

'Now if you would all like to go find your appropriate sections, which I have sign-posted for your benefit, I will join each one of you for a quick chat shortly.' A personal chat with the boss already? What planet had I landed on?