Rapid-fire Q&A, drop-dead cool photo
At the end of March, Lauren Foster, the 425 magazine managing editor, contacted our school district communications manager about a possible interview with Naomi, after learning about her on their website.
The district reached out to the school principal, who emailed us parents in turn. We deferred to Naomi's opinion, and she benevolently gave her consent to an interview which eventually took place on April 20.
Lauren came to our house with the specially booked photographer, Carlton Canary (their staff photographer was out of town). The pair gave out a sophisticated glitzy vibe, somewhat rare and precious in our area.
Even their names agreed with representing a glamorous magazine: Lauren and Carlton. Compare these to our Seattle Times (also highly professional and accomplished) reporter and photographer pair names: Eric and Erica.
Lauren went straight into rapid-fire Q&A session with Naomi, which I recorded here (click to view the video):
Naomi was relaxed and in a good mood. It looked more like a chit-chat among girls. Only by carefully listening to the conversation one could realize the depth and care Lauren put into her questions, and appreciate the quick adaptive follow-ups. We learned how different journalistic styles can be, for different formats and publications.
The photographer Carlton has set up his equipment during the interview, so the photo shoot started right after. This was pure meta - I was shooting Carlton shooting Naomi. She posed for him effortlessly, as a true media star. He took outside daylight shots on our view deck, with the lake-downtown-mountains background:
Then he took inside flashlight shots with the trophies-on-stairway background:
And here is the near moment Carlton took the photo that ended up at the 425 magazine centerfold above:
For a full month after the interview, we would periodically check the 425 magazine website, hoping to find the interview there. Eventually, on May 24, we received a large mail envelope with two printed issues of the magazine, and a drop-dead cool centerfold story, with that glamorous photo. Well worth waiting!
