My Wife Thinks She's Annie Leibovitz

I'm beginning to think there is more to this Mars vs Venus concept then I first thought. At least when it comes to taking pictures at our house.

I'm a point and shoot kind of guy. While my wife Diane tends to spend a great deal of time over each of her pictures.

For this reason I tend to score a lower irritant factor when brandishing a camera at social events then she does. My intended subjects know I'm going to snap a quick shot and keep moving.

Diane on the other hand likes to take multiple shots. She'll have people change places. "You over here". "You stand next to so and so". That sort of thing.

I have no problem with her approach to photography -- unless I'm the subject! For example this past weekend I asked her to take a picture for my blog of me standing next to the miniature cave I'm making. I wanted to show the size of it. It was a very hot day - 94 degrees in the shade.

She fiddled around taking shot after shot while I'm literally starting to do a slow burn in the sun. Then she chides me for not smiling!

Better yet was the time last summer when we were walking the beach taking pictures during an extremely rough sea with huge waves for this area. We were experiencing wave heights of 10 to 15 feet! To give you and idea of how large the surge was take a look at this photo of one of the life guard chairs.

These chairs are set out well above the usual high tide mark. They are also surrounded my a mound of sand right up to just under the chair seat. The water had washed away the mound and was beginning to drag the chair out to sea!

In this shot you can see one of the local surfers with a large wave breaking above him.

Diane decides if I went out a bit into the water it would give viewers of the pictures an idea of the size of the waves.

I look at her like shes crazy but she keeps at me. Okay I venture out a few steps and turn towards the camera. Oh no she says I need you a little further out!

I take a few more paces out and I'm starting to really feel the strength of the current pulling at me. She wants me out further! I'm starting to feel like the Chief in Jaws when Hopper is taking photos and wants him at the end of the boats pulpit to give the shark some scale. A breaking comber nails me and I'm soaked and not a happy camper. As Diane is lining up her perfect shot a large wave and comber are lining me up!

Just out of camera view to my left is a rock jetty where all the water rushing back out to sea had created a nasty rip current. I got out of there in a hurry!

So if I ever post a picture of me on my blog and I'm not grinning from ear to ear you know who the photographer was!