Some years ago, I was shooting at an estate in Long Island, New York, for two clients at once. I know this sounds peculiar, but it was initiated by the clients themselves. Two clients had agreed to hire my services for the price of one. The main client would use most of the pictures, and the second client would piggyback on the production of the first, and get its own picture from the shoot.

I’m not sure this makes any sense to you, as it surely did not make any sense to me, but what I do remember is that one picture from the shoot would be used and paid for by the second client. The only stipulation was that when the picture was made for the second client, the model’s face could not be recognizable. Those of you who are faithful followers of this blog will remember something similar happened on a much earlier occasion. To find out the resolution of that problem, you must go back and read all of the blogs, until you find the answer, by which time your eyes will have been glued shut.

Over the years, I have been asked continually why I shoot people with hats. The answer is that I’m not sure exactly, but what I do know is that I like the appearance of the hat, particularly on men. If you were to stand beside me, as many Art Directors have, and I ask you which looks better, the figure with the hat, or without it, you most likely, as many before when confronted with this situation, would probably say it looks better with the hat. It’s not just any hat. It has to be the right hat, the right size, for the right man.

If it is working correctly, it completes the figure, it answers the question, and by its very existence, seems to help raise more. It adds distinction, while at the same time makes a singular man everyman.

Getting back to my story. So on that fateful day, when I was trying to do two-for-one, Don, the enigmatic model, was sitting in this $4,000 suit, with $2,500 shoes, a $450 tie, and out comes my $50 hat.

I said to him, How do we show these clothes, while cutting off your face, not to spite you, but to save a client? He immediately put the hat over his face, and I took a few frames, and off to the races we went.

Throughout the years, a hat has saved me on more than a few occasions. Some people have used it, hat in hand, to solicit money. I, on the other hand, have used it to further complicate some rather ordinary events. It has become like my favorite semicolon at the end of some sentences. There is more to follow.

In this case, instead of the eyes being the window to one’s soul, the hat has either hidden Don from me and the client, or allowed him, on this very rare day, to forsake his normal view, and be given an entirely new perspective.