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Being a pedestrian of international stature (he says self-mockingly), once in a while I do get photographed by some really good photographers.  The latest is David Westphal who just photographed me for the JWM magazine, the in house mag of the Marriott Hotel group, so my image will be an adornment to hotel rooms the world over for three months or so, which would appeal to anybody’s vanity.

But of course vanity means that you actually worry about looking good.  That being the case, I’m always a willing model if not a very natural or comfortable one.  In general it’s easier when I’m doing something, and since walking is one of the things I apparently to do best, it made sense to take some pics of me in mid-stride.

David asked if I knew a good location where I might walk and where he might do the shoot.  I suggested Griffith Park, up by the batcave, with the possibility of a view of the Hollywood sign in the background.  Cheesy but effective.  And one of the great attractions from my point of view was that on a weekday afternoon I reckoned there wouldn’t be many people around, so the potential for embarrassment and self-consciousness would be much reduced.  David said that sounded great, but you know, somehow I didn’t really think it would be that simple.

Come the day of the shoot David had had a better idea.  He thought it would be really great if we took some pictures slap bang in the middle of Hollywood Boulevard, sometimes with me walking, sometimes with me standing still as pedestrians swarmed around me.  Now I dare say Naomi Campbell would have stamped her little foot and refused, but I am no Naomi Campbell, and frankly this sounded like a much better idea for a picture, so I went with it.  I’m not sure I really had a choice.

And rather a peculiar thing happened.  I’m not saying I look especially at ease in the pictures, but in the event I felt remarkably unembarrassed and unselfconscious during the shoot.  I guess it has something to do with the nature of Hollywood Boulevard.  First of all, whatever you’re doing there, however odd, there are always going to be plenty of people doing much odder things: a man dressed in a SpongeBob SquarePants costume, some guy forcing his CD into the hands of unwilling tourists “Well you gotta take it now ‘cause I’ve signed it for ya,” a male/female busking duo who seemed to be making up their songs as they went along, at one point launching into the lyrics, “Lick, lick that jellybean, lick it lick it till I scream.”  The chaos was oddly liberating.

As of now I’m not sure which shot the magazine has chosen (and no I don’t have image approval), but I think it probably isn’t the one at the top of this post, which is a shame. You might argue that this isn’t really a picture of me walking, but it’s the one I like best.  It has so much going for it: a tyrannosaurus, a bunch of overdressed hipsters, and the author, staring into distance, not exactly relaxed, and by no means above it all, but detached and aware and observant.  That sounds like me.

David Westphal’s website is here:http://www.westphalphotography.com/