Photo Studio

After finishing his trip to the bank, Henry made another stop at a photo studio. This type of shop, which had nearly vanished from city streets by the 2020s of the twenty-first century, was still fairly common in the 1990s.

Especially in Los Angeles, the city that embraced Hollywood, the capital of film. Every photo studio displayed striking portraits and artistic shots in its storefront.

They might be of an exceptionally refined beauty, or a charismatic man comparable to a male fashion model. Some studios even displayed photos of current stars or veteran stars in their younger days.

Everyone wanted to use such beautiful photos to attract the men and women who came to this city of film.

If they were tourists, then they could leave themselves the finest memory of their youth.

If they were young men and women chasing their dreams, it went without saying that making a good first impression was crucial if they wanted to stand out at auditions.

Without handing over a beautiful photo first, they would not even qualify to climb the red couch. Behind this glamorous world lay such harsh, filthy reality.

For Henry, artistic portraits were secondary, but he did need to get himself an ID photo.

The thing Old Tom had taken for him back in Alaska had atrocious lighting. It made him look like he had just crawled out of hell, with a face everyone loathed.

Add height marks behind him and a nameplate in front, and it could have passed for a mugshot or wanted poster.

Looking at that ghastly image, Henry had not even wanted the negative. If the photos on his driver's license and passport had not been embossed with official seals, he would have replaced them immediately.

But now that he was in Los Angeles, he needed a basic headshot if he wanted to register with the Actors Guild or get in with an agency. Even if he applied for other jobs, he would still need a headshot. So he needed photographs taken.

This was not the world twenty or thirty years later, where he could hold up a phone, find a white wall for a background, snap away, transfer the files to a computer, edit them, and print them in color.

In the 1990s, digital cameras were still confined to laboratories. And due to the size of their electronic components, they could not compare with traditional cameras at all. As for image quality, there was even less to say.

Traditional film cameras were still mainstream in this era, and most people did not know how to develop photographs themselves, so they had to bring them to photo studios.

So if he wanted pictures taken, finding a photo studio was a must. The one Henry found was close to the motel where he was staying, making it convenient to pick up the photos later.

The moment he walked in, a greasy old white man came up to greet him. The man's huge belly jiggled as he chuckled. "Welcome. What kind of photos would you like?"

"A set of wedding photos for newlyweds is six thousand six hundred dollars, family portraits are four thousand two hundred, actor audition headshots are three thousand eight hundred, and personal artistic portraits are two thousand two hundred.

"Outdoor shoots require an additional day's pay for the photographer and assistant. We guarantee at least three rolls of negatives for you to choose from. If you bring in a second customer, you get twenty percent off. If you want photos, do it fast."

What the fuck? What was all this package nonsense?

It felt like he wanted to buy a little electric scooter, only to walk in and find a row of Ferraris, Porsches, Mercedes, and Maseratis. Who was this supposed to bankrupt?

Stunned, Henry hesitated slightly before saying, "Uh, I'm just here for ID photos."

"Hey, young man, aren't you going to leave some memories of your youth behind?" the chatty old white man continued his sales pitch.

"No, just ID photos," Henry said decisively this time.

"Hey, think it over. You only get one youth. When you're all wrinkled and your teeth have fallen out, you'll regret not letting me photograph you today." The old white man refused to give up.

Henry grumbled inwardly, I've already gone through puberty twice!

But he had no intention of arguing with the man. Los Angeles had more than one photo studio. Henry turned around and left, ready to find another one.

"Wait, okay, okay, just ID photos. No artistic portraits. What a waste of my skills. Do you know how many people beg me to photograph them, and I refuse?"

If the old man had not been quoting prices like he could live off one sale for three years, Henry might have believed him.

A comparison with some actual numbers made it obvious. The average monthly wage for blue-collar workers in the United States was roughly three to four thousand dollars. When Henry had gotten his documents handled through Old Tom, Old Tom's opening price had only been two thousand dollars.

With that comparison, it was not hard to understand how outrageous this studio's prices were.

Still, since the man had stopped him, Henry paused to hear the price. "I want twelve two-inch photos and twelve one-inch photos. How much?"

"Flat rate, sixty dollars."

Henry did not haggle. He merely turned around and started walking away again.

"Wait, wait, wait! You're not happy with that either? Then tell me, how much do you want?" the old white man asked anxiously.

"Thirty dollars. Half up front as a deposit."

"Fuck, are you Jewish? Go find another studio and see whether anyone will give you that price."

"Unfortunately, I'm sure I'm not Jewish." I'm a fucking alien!

"Fifty dollars. No lower."

"Thirty." Henry had no patience for this game of each side giving a little. Take it or leave it.

But the old white man did not give up. "Forty dollars. That's just the material cost. I'd be working for free."

Henry turned around for the third time, with no intention of staying.

When he started walking away again, the old white man truly panicked. He hurriedly shouted, "Okay, thirty dollars! I'll take a loss to photograph you. Fuck, I wish you really were Jewish. Then the Führer should have done his job properly back then. Wouldn't it have been great if there had been no D-Day?"

Well, Henry did not know the going rate for ID photos. But judging from the old white man's reaction, he felt he had still paid too much.

After rummaging around on himself for a while, he scraped together fifteen dollars in cash and slapped it on the counter.

As he stood at the counter, Henry spotted something that made him nostalgic. He pointed behind the counter, at a computer desk holding a brand-new, bulky CRT monitor, with a horizontal computer case beneath it.

Seeing the STARK brand name, Henry asked curiously, "Stark Industries? What kind of CPU does this computer use?"

The old white man, who had been wearing a disappointed expression, immediately beamed again. "Oh, kid, you know your stuff. This personal computer uses Intel's newest i486 processor, with four megabytes of built-in memory and a one-hundred-and-twenty-megabyte hard drive.

"The display adapter is a VGA card. Not four-color CGA, not sixteen-color EGA. Can you imagine it? A two-hundred-and-fifty-six-color VGA card can display such beautiful images.

"It also has five-and-a-quarter-inch and three-and-a-half-inch floppy drives, plus a CD-ROM drive. It runs fast as hell. A premium Stark Industries product—not something ordinary people can easily buy. Dell and IBM? At the same price point, they simply lose to Stark personal computers."

...Yeah, Henry suddenly did not know where to begin mocking him.

Henry said dryly, "Yeah, no bullshit. I'm so impressed I might piss myself."