Rule of Thirds, The by Chantel Guertin Read Free Book Online

Callie’s probably more into Dylan than he is into her. So what you have to do is kill her with kindness. You know the saying: keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.”
    The last thing I want to do is have to fake niceties to someone I can’t stand. It’s so not me. And Dace knows it. I offer her a pained look, just to drive home the point.
    “Sometimes we have to do things we don’t want to do for the ones we love,” Dace declares, then tells me she’ll see me in History. I ask Emma if she’s ready to go. We’re in homeroom together.
    Emma lets out a huge sigh and slams her locker. “I can’t find my iPod.”
    “Maybe you left it at home?” She shakes her head as Ben passes us. He glances over, notices me and gives me a wink.
    “We’re on for lunch, right?” he asks, as though we have a date, and not a photo club meeting with four other members. Still, I feel myself blushing as I nod.
    He keeps walking and I turn back to Emma, who’s staring at me. “What was that all about?”
    I just smile.
    • • •
    Can I see your shots?” Ben asks. I’m sitting in the photocopy room next to him at lunch, waiting for the photo club meeting to start. I hand over my camera. He studies one of my recent pics of Dace: she’s in her bedroom getting ready to go out. I love the way the late afternoon sun hits her hair, making it look like ribbons cascading over her bare shoulders.
    “Is that in sepia?”
    “Yeah, I shot it that way. Shoot don’t ’Shop,” I add, then blush. Total nerd moment.
    “Is that your motto?” he teases. He pulls his chair over so he’s inches away from me and looks me right in the face with his big blue eyes.
    “I know, it’s kind of lame, but I’d rather get it right when I’m shooting than have to manipulate the image in post to get what I want.”
    “A girl after my own heart.”
    “Really?” I’m surprised. “Not many people feel that way. Especially now that it’s so easy to alter them after. Like on Instagram. Everyone’s a photographer.”
    “You’re not on Instagram?” he asks in disbelief.
    “Yeah I am, all I mean is . . .” I trail off.
    Gemma rushes in, her tight black curls springing up and down, followed by Brooke, a sophomore who joined the club this year. We get started showing photos for this week’s theme. Arlan goes first, since he chose the theme—Gray—and I follow next, plugging my flash drive into the computer that’s connected to the projector and bringing up the photos. I’m pretty pleased because all three are gray naturally—not just shot in black-and-white, which I think is sort of taking the easy way out. First up is the album page at the garage sale, then my gray Tisch sweatshirt, tossed over the back of my white desk chair. The final one is from a rainy day last week. I’d framed the shot to capture the horizon where the gray sky met the river, my white bedroom window frame creating a border around a single oak tree. The entire shot is in shades of gray, giving it depth and nuance.
    Jeffrey has a shot of a mitten (big surprise) but it’s lying in the middle of an asphalt street. He shot in color but the result is entirely gray and really works. Gemma’s photos are all shot in black-and-white. I tell her I like the shot of her white Pomeranian sitting on the couch, and suggest that if she’d found a gray blanket as a backdrop she could’ve shot in color for a stronger effect. We discuss whether shooting in black-and-white is really capturing gray as a theme, or if it’s manipulating the theme.
    Ben pipes in to agree with me, saying that we should be using our eye, not technology.
    “Yeah but if you’re purposely looking for shots that are gray, you’re manipulating what could otherwise be a great shot, before you even take the picture,” Jeffrey argues, despite the fact that two of his three shots are true gray shots.
    “Sounds like you’re being defensive,” Ben retorts.
    “Why don’t you go next?” Jeffrey