Here's what could have happened with the picture: pure fiction of course and with due respect to all concerned -a bit of verbal fun for a change:
His finger hovering over the button ready to trip the shutter, Dave glanced up seeking last-minute divine intervention
‘Where else on earth would you want to be at this moment?’, he asked himself, noting the pink-fringed clouds.
Well, he could have stood in bed but no - after all, this was a magical, mysterious location, where anything could happen and often did if you were lucky enough to be there at the time. And Dave was often in places like this - fair dues.
Then he noticed a mysterious pendulum dangling invitingly over his head. It emitted a strange, blue, light and it swung back and forth in the breeze, enticingly touching his wool cap as it passed. There was a faint, glittering legend inscribed on its face which read: creative cloud.
Dave was puzzled. This artefact definitely hadn’t been there when he’d so carefully set up his tripod in the early hours, when he’d examined every element of the scene, above, below and beyond; when he’d clinically anticipated every artistic potential, and when he’d waited so patiently for the right light. He would have noticed something like that.
And now this aberration!
‘Creative cloud my arse!’ he muttered, adjusting an f-stop. ‘This is a catastrophe, this is worse than a human person walking into a landscape.’
Dave did his best to ignore the apparition, but he couldn’t. Eventually, he slowly reached up and gently tugged on the chord, thinking that the bizarre hallucination was due to his lack of sleep and that it would soon disappear. He was wrong.
Every time he chucked on the chord, the colour in the landscape changed and became dramatically more spectacular and lighter in tone - just the way he'd wanted it in the first place. Now, all he had to do was imagine the perfect picture and, hey presto, it appeared.
‘Oh my God, Reichmann and Schewe are dead in the water. I have seen the future’, he stammered, arms outstretched to the sky. ‘It’s up there - it’s in the clouds.’
Every time he pulled the chord, a more arresting image appeared. He couldn’t decide. He twiddled with the chord. He found a small knob. He pressed it. The previous image came up. He pressed again. A better one emerged. He went back and forth, unable to choose.
Then a rare light began to spread on the landscape - a possible masterpiece, in Fred’s humble opinion, but still he hesitated. Too many choices, and too many know-it-alls on a place called LuLa where he submitted work for appraisal. To him, the term LuLa conjured up an image of an open-air lunatic asylum, but he kept that to himself. No point in making more enemies than he had already.
Privately, he regarded its denizens with loathing (he wasn't alone in that) - a gallery of sneering loudmouth misfits, making excoriating comments just to show how clever they were with a keyboard and a limited vocabulary. Many of them never took a decent picture in their miserable lives and if asked, would say that depth of field was an important element of agriculture. Some of them were retired from godforsaken jobs and never got out of bed. At least that was his private opinion, but he didn't share it with anybody, certainly not on LuLa itself. After all, does a turkey vote for Christmas?
As for Isaac - a class of his own.
Fred’s finger hovered over the button. He couldn’t decide - so many choices, so many critics to please, Isaac lurking, what to do? The more he delayed, the more Isaac preyed on his mind.
Suddenly, a deep voice reverberated around the whole landscape, the tripod tilted and fell to the ground, the very earth shivered, thunder rolled in the distant hills and lightening streaked the heavens. A mighty voice commanded:
‘TAKE THE FUCKING SHOT.'
So Dave did what he was told and experienced great joy.
‘I have a keeper - I’m confident’, he proclaimed to the valley in a sudden rush of contentment to the head. He was at peace with himself and the wider world and as far as LuLa was concerned - two fingers.
'They can't take this from me', he whispered, fists clenched. 'It's inspired.'
Wisely, he didn't look to the clouds or try to engage the mysterious force that had made him into a great photographer and a prophet. He simply folded his tripod and set his face towards home, but as he progressed, a thought slowly began to gnaw at his mind and eventually it crystallised into a single dread:
‘I saw the future up at the lake, I saw the end of the world as we know it, I am part of the new order, I took a great image on the word of a god, but no matter, I feel in my bones that those bastards on LuLa will start knit-picking and pointing the finger. Where am I going wrong? Especially with Isaac!'
In his new wisdom, he found no answer to that.
