A little story...

Just a little story I thought I'd pass on...
The other night I went to my photography group. We gather in a local public library that has meeting rooms. About 20 minutes into the presentation, a man walked in and apologized for being late. He was new and got lost. We had a rather large turnout that night of about 17 people, so the seating was limited. He ended up sitting up front near the presenter. The presenter was doing a presentation on lighting and using flashes, and bounce flashes, etc... Well, he needed a "model" so he could illustrate the various lighting techniques. As it turns out the new guy (I'll call him Lou because he looked like a Lou - I forget his real name.) Lou was sitting in a good spot that made him an easy target for being the model. He was about 50-ish with a strong build. Lou sort of smiled and jokingly said "actually I am a model". I didn't think there was anything special about his looks to qualify him as a model but just assumed he was one of these "average joe" models like you might see in a catalog. After a few shots later, he joked again about being a model and then took his business card out and handed it to the presenter. The presenter sort of laughed and chuckled and asked if he could pass his card around, and Lou shrugged his shoulders and said sure. I was sitting about 3/4 way around the table and I started noticing the reaction to the business card as it was being passed around. It usually got a chuckle, or a small gasp, or a raised eyebrow. Hmm, I thought... that was a strange reaction to a business card. Well, eventually the card made it's way around to me... I had to chuckle also :) Here, Lou was a female impersonator. I just passed the card along and continued to watch the surprised looks, and raised eyebrows, etc... What I found interesting was that once the initial reaction, everyone accepted Lou and didn't make a big deal about it. It was all so "matter-of-fact". I just thought it a nice little story, and to notice the "nuances" of the various reactions was interesting to me. As I told this story to a friend she said, "It's not everyday one gets to meet a female impersonator"... I never thought of it like that.