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I tend to overreact a lot.

One of my greatest fears is probably public speaking. Of all of my fears-- death, needles, infectious diseases, fluorescent lighting-- public speaking might be the worst. I don't know what it is about me and public speaking, but I tend to make it a bigger deal than it actually is and psyche myself out into being nervous to an insane degree. There have been times when I've gotten up in front of people only to forget everything I was about to say and times in which I've been unable to continue talking because I was shaking so badly. This is why I was a little less than excited when I found out I would need to speak in front of forty strangers on this past Monday. I'm sure that sort of prospect would make anybody nervous, but for me, I think I would have preferred being dropped into the middle of a snake-infested lake in the middle of the night with only a flashlight than speak in front of those people.

So. Some explanation. My friend Katrina sent me a message on Facebook a few weeks ago asking me if I wanted to be a photographer in this upcoming shoot she's doing. She explained to me that it was a project for some fashion styling students at LIM College and that we would each be the photographers for three groups of five students. There would be professional models and the students would obviously be styling the shoots themselves. This was pretty exciting and I immediately agreed.

About the middle of last week, Katrina sent me an e-mail with a forward from the woman who is basically in charge of this whole thing, Adrienne. In the message, Adrienne left her phone number and says that she would really like to speak to me as soon as possible to gauge my "aura." I called her and was ultimately talked into skipping class on Monday and coming down to the Fashion Styling club to speak about my photography. She also mentioned that I would need to bring my "book." I don't have a book. Or any kind of portfolio, for that matter. Cue freak-out.

I could hardly study for my Photo History midterm which was the next day. Instead, I occupied my nervous self by googling tips on how to overcome public speaking fear. Some sites told me that I should practice heavy breathing and to go in with the endpoint in mind. Others told me to repeat a mantra in my head. They never told me what that mantra was, because I think I had to sign up for their service in order to find out, but I assumed it was something like "You are the coolest person in the world and everybody else sucks. You are the coolest person in the world, and everybody else sucks." I took a personality test and it told me that I had "Severe" fear of public speaking and that I would need to purchase their kit DVDs and audiobooks. Great.

On Monday morning, I was jittery as ever and I started to feel the signs of my brain psyching itself out. I could hardly concentrate on anything else besides the fact that OHMYGOD. I need to speak in front of forty students in like two hours. A few minutes before I had to leave for Manhattan, I burned a DVD of the photos I was going to show the class and hurried to the subway. The entire subway ride, I was having conversations with myself in my head telling myself that I needed to CHILL OUT and "STOP it, just STOP it, Max." I also tried some self-affirming mantras like, "You are awesome. You are pretty much the most awesome person ever," but I had a hard time believing myself.

I got out of the subway at Bryant Park in the middle of Manhattan's garment district. I headed towards the place where I was supposed to meet Adrienne, at the corner of 45th Street and 5th Avenue. I arrived there and waited in front of the Jewelry store that was there. I looked around for somebody that looked like they might be the head of a styling club. My fiend Katrina told me that Adrienne was kind of crazy (but in a good way), so I was expecting some kind of high-strung ultra-fashionable dragon lady à la Anna Wintour or Edna Mode. When I heard my name being called and turned around, I was immediately put at ease when I realized that this woman's brand of crazy was much more Ms. Frizzle. I introduced myself and she told me not to be nervous and that we were going to have fun. I didn't know if I quite believed her yet, but I still felt somewhat relieved.

We got the the classroom where the fashion styling club met and a lot of students were already there. The classroom set up itself kind of made me less nervous. It was not the intimidating lecture hall full of zombie-eyed students that my mind had envisioned. It was much smaller and had about five group studio tables set up around the room. The students were also nicer and way less judgmental looking than I had pictured. I took my seat at one of the tables close to the front of the classroom and waited until it was my turn to speak.

Adrienne began the meeting with what would normally happen at the beginning of any club meeting, introductions, announcements, reminders, etc. After about fifteen minutes, she said that she would now turn it over to me while she left the classroom for a few minutes. All this time, I had been formulating what I was going to say in my head and I was pretty sure I had come up with something good. My plan was to speak just a little bit and then ask the students to speak so I could have a sort of conversation with them. With a more conversational approach, I was given things to talk about through comments and questions and I wasn't left on my own so much to pull random garbage out of my head. I introduced myself and told the students that I would like to hear from them what each group's projects were so I could get a better idea of the looks they were going for.

As each group went around and told me their ideas, I interjected comments here and there, adding suggestions and my input to each one. This really helped me to become more at least with the group because I didn't have to speak continuously and it allowed me to stretch my public-speaking-muscles. After each group had gone around, I proceeded to pass around a folder of my prints and put the DVD of my photos into the computer to show on the overhead projector. The DVD didn't show up on the desktop, so I had to ask the students if any of them was familiar with Windows computers. None of them could figure out the issue, so I just brought up my flickr instead and showed them pretty much every single one of my favorite photos, probably a couple hundred total.

After I showed my photos and answered a few questions about things that I like to see in a stylist (flexibility and preparedness), I went around and talked with a few of the groups individually. I'm so glad that I'm taking a fashion styling class at Pratt this semester, because I felt totally awesome at being able to use stylist jargon with them. I also felt ultra-prepared in the sense that I could pull random photographers' names out of my head when I was discussing each group's looks. It felt really good to have people come up to me afterwards and tell me that they really liked my photography. Adrienne herself told me that I reminded her of a young Andy Warhol and Juergen Teller. I didn't quite see the Andy Warhol, but I took both as compliments. I was pretty much elated when I left the meeting and walked back with Adrienne to Bryant Park. We discussed the upcoming shoot and I told her how excited I was to be working with them on it.

When I left Adrienne and started walking to the subway, something amazing happened. It was as if God was smiling down upon me and, proud that I didn't make an idiot of myself, decided to give me a little present. As I got to the other side of the street, I saw walking out of the corner of my eye, none other than MARTHA STEWART. She seemed kind of busy and was talking to some man as she walked, so I didn't bother her to get a picture with her, although I regretted it almost immediately after I walked away. Still, I felt as if that was the cherry on top of what was a pretty successful day.

October 23, 2007 at 09:36 AM

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