Curatorialist

I’ve had this story rolling around in my head for years…

A girl takes a photography class in college. As part of a class assignment, she grabs a suave freshman student to sit for her on a sheet-covered couch, siting against a wall, etc. Natural light fills the room, perhaps a bit over-exposed but nice – the subject smiles and is unusually comfortable and relaxed in front of the lens. The pictures capture something but she dismisses it and goes on to major in psychology.

29 years pass, the girl has her own practice, and that guy in the picture suddenly turns up as the President of the United States. What are the chances? She rummages through her garage, past old yearbooks and that first Nikkormat SLR. She wipes the dust from the viewfinder. Then, under a stack of old records and letters, she finds a proof sheet. It’s him.

Now people are knocking down her door for those shots. Galleries, publishers and tabloids all want to get their hands on her photographs. Caught up in all the attention, she starts to wonder, what if? What if I had stayed with it? Listened to my passion? That old fire burns again.

Flashback to an earlier time, childhood, spotty memories of her dad trying hard to make ends meet. She, tummy down on the shag carpet floor, looking at album covers of Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and The Beatles. Admiring the images. All you need is love, after all. At what point do we decide to lead a normal, stable life? What do we give up when we do?

Present day. The phone keeps ringing. It’s a symbol of her “calling.” Meanwhile, she sits in her chair, listening to other people talk about their problems, their own broken dreams.  Cut to the President, ebullient, commanding, at the top of his game.

Los Angeles, evening. The President lands in the city for the first time since his election. Coincidentally, on that very night a gallery is opening across town. It’s those photographs. It’s her. We cut back and forth between the two of them – him, all about the future and what could be. She – the past and what could have been. At midnight, on his way to the hotel, the President’s limo stops at a light, he looks through his window and…

Then, just as I was writing the ending, THIS happens!

Photos Show President as Barry the Freshman

Whatever, I have a great second script about a homely Scottish woman who wins a national singing contest. You’ll love it.