Now appearing in your family's summer photos - me.

One thing I've had to get used to with living downtown during the summer is all the paparazzi. No, I'm not saying Lindsey Lohan has ever gotten into a knife fight here or anything, there is just  alot of old, interesting architecture here, so everyone comes here for pictures. It seems all summer long there are happy family pictures, photo shoots for local businesses, engagement pictures...or even apparently sport catalog scene shoots. I absolutely get it - instead of the lame generic, soulless photo backdrops, I would much rather have pictures taken among decaying brick walls than that stupid 90's laser background in some photographer's studio (seriously, what was the thought process behind that laser background "If only there was a way we could look like we are posing for our family picture in the middle of a gun-fight in the far away future - as imagined in the late 80's!")

The thing with there being pictures EVERYWHERE is that when I go anywhere, I end up in them.
A few recent examples:

Last week, I was driving to the grocery store (it was actually the same day I saw this) when I noticed a couple posing parallel to me when I was stopped at a light. I had just turned to the right to try to figure out if they were going to wait till I passed for the pictures to start when the flashbulb began going off. I hope that random couple cherishes the pictures they took this summer with me in my car staring at them like a deer in the headlights.

I didn't even realize I was in the middle of a photo shoot on the walk to work till I heard the photog instructing the child model to "SMILE - but like your not trying to smile, just smile!". With no other option, I just smiled - like I wasn't really trying to smile and continued on my way.

Last week I was on my way home for lunch break after stopping for a healthy shake on the way. I was at a "don't walk: crosswalk when I look up and notice that me, my shake, and my cup of tea that comes with my shake are in the immediate background of a news crew filming a story. I also have a habit of ending up on TV in ridiculous situations - in college, I ended up getting interviewed by a local TV station about about Nazis while super sick -therefore, drugged to the gills on every kind of cold medicine you can get. That was weird.

While riding my bike to the park, I saw a family posing in front of a storefront, but they were taking up the whole sidewalk except for the space between their backs and the storefront, just as I whizzed behind them on my mountain bike, I was blinded by the flashes. Yeah, I'm sure that's one for over the fireplace.

On my bike trail one day,  I see a group of people being staged and posed with sporting equipment while a photographer directed 2 assistants with huge mirrors to shine light on the group. Once, again, as I bike past behind the  models, I am blinded by the flashes. I am now considering adding "sporting goods model" to my resume.

I guess there is one positive, about a hundred or so other people have documented my summer. It's like there is this weird, disconnected scrapbook of Josh T's summer floating throughout a 3-state radius.
But for realz, I really am in like 50 wedding/engagement/family/promotional shots from this summer alone - and at least 2 news stories.