Celebrity Shoot

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Celebrity Shoot - Lucy Pargeter, aka Chaz Dingle from Emmerdale

Ocassionally, I get to do something different and its gigs like this that make being a photographer so much fun. On Saturday, 28th August I was asked to attend the opening of a new retail store for Poundland, the value brand shopping chain. They had organised for Lucy Pargeter (or Chaz Dingle if you watch Emmerdale) to officially open the shop and be on hand to sign autographs for customers, hand out vouchers and generally be a personality.

I discovered that Lucy has the heart of a saint, the charm of an entertainer and the patience of angels. For 3 hours she smiled and chatted with a never-ending stream of people, all of whom felt they knew her personally and spoke to her like she was their best friend. She signed autographs almost constantly and I'd not be surprised if she now has RSI in her right wrist. If you thought being a celebrity was easy, watch this girl work the crowds.

I'd like to think the folks at Poundland were pleased with the day. The shop was "chokka" all of the time I was there and getting around became a challenge for me. At intervals Lucy would grab the microphone from the entertainer, stuff some vouchers in her hand and rush off down the aisles in search of punters to give them to. I had to keep in touch with her and capture the key moments - shoppers smiling wide-eyed as they were handed a £10 voucher. I started out behind her - wrong move, so had to get in front of her, which meant me doing a Michael Jackson-esq, Moonwalk backwards to keep her in view - while not knocking anyone over or tripping over a push-chair. I had to guess whether she'd turn right or left and I'm sure sometimes she just went the opposite way from me for badness!

Much of the day though, I just stood around. There's only so many pictures of someone signing autographs you can take; and we had hoped for a check-out challenge but it wasn't to be as the stream of people for autographs just kept coming. I'm sure almost everyone living in Leith came in to see her and got something signed by her. One wee girl got her tee-shirt signed and I saw another couple who'd had their photo taken with her (by camera phone) who then rushed to the 1 hour photo developer and came back and got her to sign the photo! Very cool!

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