It.s done! The Dead Man’s Hand photo shoot took place at the Cenote Lounge last Sunday. To all the assiduous readers, here.s a few photos and happy memories from the event. Although the Dead Man.s Hand is a spooky idea, the photo shoot was anything but!

Here.s me slaving away getting all the props together the night before:

Because none of the roles were preassigned (except Wild Bill), I wrote up cue cards for all the different roles:

Also had to make sure the dead man’s hand was in the deck of cards: pair aces on eights with the Queen of Clubs as the kicker card:

Here.s ‘Wild Bill’ holding the dead man’s hand:

Clockwise from the right, here.s R, EA, OZ, and EW posing as poker players. The lighting is just perfect. No need for the special photography lamps. We had to hold still for expert photographer MR to get all the shots. From what I could understand, he would take a photo of the group and then follow up with individual shots of the gamblers’ expressions. As MR lines up the photos, artist SB provides feedback. The intent is for SB to create the watercolour painting from the photographs so the communication between photographer and artist is crucial.

Clockwise from right here.s the second gambler group: MT, CK, LH, and EW. Having two gambler groups gives assiduous artist SB more options for the look she wants to achieve.

Besides the gamblers, the illustration also calls for a server, bartender, and barstool customer. LH nails down the surprised expression in playing the server. Hollywood lost a bright talent when LH decided to go in a different direction!–

And in the final shot, Cenote co-owner S got into the action by playing himself (bartender). Perfect: he.s got a classic 90s punk ‘Open Up Your Mouth and Say SNFU’ shirt! Photographer MR also hands off the camera to SB so he can get into the action as well. Here he is with the bartender doing a damn fine Clint Eastwood impression. Make my day!–

We had allowed an hour and a half for the shoot. Actual time was closer to an hour. With the great team we had, things went quickly. Everyone is all smiles after the shoot wraps up. Here EA is helping me take down the food orders. I had originally started writing down everyone.s orders on the little notepad but boy it is really hard to write all those words on a wretched little square of paper! It turns out EA had been a waitress many years ago so I.m glad she offered a hand!

And of course since we are all full of smiles we took a group photo for the blog at the entrance of Cenote. Damn you guys look like stars!

THANK YOU to everyone for making this happen! To S, thank you for opening up Cenote early and letting us have access to the space. The tasty Cenote dogs sure hit the spot afterwards. I will have to incorporate them into my routine! To OZ and CR, thank you for making it down while 8 months pregnant and on move day as well! Can.t wait to hear the good news and to hear the name you guys decided on. To Ei: enjoy the cards, don.t worry I let your mom know the odds of pulling out the dead man’s hand is actually 1 in 2.5 million! Just make sure you shuffle well and you will do just fine! To C the Great, thank you for helping out on such short notice. Good luck on the Whitehorse adventure and I want to hear more about it before you guys take off!  To LH, I.m sure glad you were able to come down–we.ve been discussing the idea of this shoot on our runs for such a long time that you know more about it than I do. It was terribly nervous for me on shoot day, but when I heard you explaining to the other folks the idea behind the shoot so well, it totally calmed me down! To R, thank you for taking part in the shoot and an even bigger thank you to sharing the secret of the Brazilian BBQ with us later on. You are the BBQ god and we will carry on the tradition of expert steak making! To MT, thank you for helping out at the shoot. Even though I.ve left the construction industry, that I can count on you means more to me than ever. It.s going to be time soon for us to catch a show again soon! To EA, thank you for agreeing to come out on short notice and sharing the mighty Jeep Wrangler story. Synchronicity, what more can I say!–while you were buying the Jeep I was blogging about old times. But let.s make a meaningful coincidence happen sooner this time!

And finally, none of this would have happened without the efforts of diligent photographer MR and artist SB. Kudos to them for taking on a challenging commission from an unknown patron. To capture all the flashing thoughts and feelings in that split second after being surprised but before the conscious mind grasps what is going on is a serious challenge. They are capturing the moment between states like the moment liquid is flashing into steam but is not yet steam. But from what I can see, if anyone.s going to be able to do it, it.s going to be MR and SB.

There you have it! Until next time, I.m Edwin Wong and because I held the dead man’s hand and lived to tell the tale, I will continue to be Doing Melpomene’s Work.