Dirt nap

Nothing can ruin an assignments like hearing the subject your photographing stop and say “Is that a dead body lying over there?”

There I was getting ready to take a portrait in Lincoln Park at the gazebo when those words rang out. I turned around to see a man laying face down in the grass and not moving. I was trying to decide whether to call the police on my cell phone or poke the body with a stick to see if he was actually dead when he stirred from his nap in the park.

That’s not the way to start most assignments, especially with someone leery of the camera but at least she had a good story to tell her family.