My hands slipped on the camera strap when I lifted it, and I had to steady the body against my hip before raising it again.
After a beat, I checked the time.
Missed lunch.
Skipped coffee.
Five new messages I hadn’t opened.
I tightened my grip like that might fix everything.
I told myself I’d eat after the shoot. I meant it. I would eat. I just had to stop by the library first and upload one thing for class.
The real failure came that night.
I was late to René’s shoot.
Not by six minutes.
By twenty-three.
I ran in breathless, rain still clinging to my coat, heart racing, brain stuck somewhere between Mischa’s voice and the echo of my own excuses. The set was already alive—lights calibrated, models in place, assistants moving with quiet efficiency.
And I slid into it like I hadn’t just missed the opening beat.
I set my camera up on autopilot, which was yetanothermistake.
Wrong ISO. Wrong white balance. Wrong lens.
I didn’t realize it until René was already watching the test shots appear on the monitor.
He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t even turn fully toward me.
“Stop,” he said.
Flat. Final.
The word cut through the room cleaner than any shout.
Everything froze—the model mid-shift, an assistant’s hand hovering over a light stand, my own fingers still resting on the body of the camera like it might explain itself if I waited.
“What are you doing?” René asked.
Not angry. Not accusing.
Just… genuinely confused.
I looked at the screen and saw it instantly.
Blown highlights where there should have been texture. Edges too soft to trust. Noise crawling through the shadows like static.
Not experimental. Not stylized.
Just wrong.
I’d been moving too fast.
Not thinking. Not checking. Notpresent.
