I have a system and I am not ashamed to claim it here,
A photo-positioning approach refined across the years,
Back left, slight angle, chin tilted at eleven degrees,
A science developed out of photographic personal disease.
The direct frontal photo is a gamble I do not take lightly,
The overhead shot requires a very specific lighting rightly,
The candid is the worst of all the photographic formats,
A sudden documentation of my actual habitat.
The group photo maneuver, I deploy it every time,
Back left, slight angle, just enough behind to find
The arrangement that subtracts the worst and keeps the decent rest,
The group photo maneuver is a studied interest.
I have ruined several photos by maneuvering too hard,
A visible effort to position leaving everyone off guard,
You can see me in the background calculating my trajectory,
A man engaged in silent and determined photo directory.
My buddy just stands wherever he is told without consideration,
A natural confidence in his relationship to documentation,
He just exists in photographs with casual and genuine ease,
I am over here doing physics with degrees.
At a wedding last year I arrived too late to take the left,
The right side is my non-dominant angle and I felt bereft,
I spent the whole reception subtly working toward the other side,
At the next photo opportunity I took it with some pride.
The truth is probably that nobody is looking at me specifically,
That each person in the group is concerned with their own visibility,
But I will keep the maneuver active as a precaution still,
Because one good photo out of twelve is a specific thrill.