"Ooh. Yeah. That's right, baby. Work it. Come on, work it for me. Work it now. I want the real you, baby. You from the inside out. Good. Give me more. Don't hold back on me, baby - I know it's in there - give it to me! Oooh, yeah! Yes! Yes! Give me all you've got - all you've got - all...you've...got!"
The roll of film spent, the photographer hands the camera to his assistant, who hands him a camera with a blank roll. Before he gets a shot off, however, the photographer looks more closely at the model and frowns. He walks around the model, looking from every conceivable angle, his frown deepening. Quietly, he asks the assistant to get the stylist.
A moment later, the stylist walks into the studio. The photographer takes her to a corner of the room and explains that the lettuce appears to be wilting under the heat of the studio lights and that the bun looks a little wooden. Can the stylist please do something? What about the patty? the stylist asks. The photographer says the patty is fine, fantastic, good enough to eat - ha ha. Focus on the bun and the lettuce, please.
"Okay, dearie, we're just going to freshen you up a little bit - you've been working under the lights for a couple of hours, now, and the heat will take it out of you! Between you and me, His Royal Highness is something of a perfectionist - every leaf has to be just so, every seed in its proper place. Hard to work with? Oh, sweetie, if I told you how many meals never want to work with him again! ...Still, you won't believe how good you'll look - a work of art..."
The stylist sprays a glycerin gel over the lettuce to make it glisten with lettucey goodness. (The photographer tactfully fiddles with his equipment while the bun is lifted to minimize the model's embarrassment.) With a small brush, the stylist paints the browning edges of the lettuce a mouth-watering green. The bun shouldn't have been a problem, seeing as how it really was made of wood; however, the seeds were drying under the lights, so she touched them up.
"No joke. He was working for Kraft the other day - I'm just going to lift your lettuce a little there, dear, thanks - I have to tell you, that macaroni practically glowed orange! Never mind that it never looks that good on your plate - I don't think that colour exists in nature! Yeah, I know, he can be a real pain in the ass sometimes, but, honey, you'll never look this good again!"
The photographer watches the stylist as she bends over to tease the lettuce and apply rouge to the tomato. He cannot hear their conspiratorial whispers, but he knows that the stylist is commiserating over how hard he was pushing the model, what a real bastard perfectionist he was - yeah, yeah, yeah.
This picture would be appearing in hundreds of magazines and on thousands of billboards around the world. After years of unparalleled growth, the client's sales had finally started to falter - this campaign was crucial to its future success. Was the photographer a perfectionist? With so much at stake, how could he afford not to be?
It wasn't like the models were perfect when they walked into the studio and all he had to do was press a button to capture their perfection, was it? They often came in looking like raw meat, if you want to know the truth of the matter. The clients didn't care about their substance abuse (the pesticides were the worst - they could kill a model in less than a season) and sexual debauchery - all they cared about was making the mouths of teenagers water, making them hunger for the product in a manner that would have made Pavlov proud.
The stylist nods at the photographer and walks off the set. She has, as usual, done a brilliant job: the hamburger looks good enough to eat. Setting the smile on his face, the photographer returns to work.
"Okay. Good. Good. You're holding back on me, baby. Don't hold back - I want everything you've got. Come on! Come on! That's right - more! I want more! More! More! More! That's it, baby! That's right! Good. You're beautiful. Really, really, good. Give it to me, baby! Yes! Give it to me! Yes! YES! YEEESSSSSSSSS!"