It’s mid-August, which means various things to various people, but for the Guilford County Commissioners it meant that it was time for their closeup Mr. DeMille.

Actually, it wasn’t a closeup and the late Mr. DeMille was nowhere to be found, however, at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 18, just before the start of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners’ regular August meeting, the nine commissioners who were dressed to the nines posed for the photo that will hang in the Old Guilford County Court House in perpetuity.

Earlier that afternoon, some commissioners got their official individual photos taken on the fourth floor of the old county court house.

The commissioners posed for their annual group picture immediately after an afternoon work session and right before their publicly-noticed regular meeting, so there was no controversy surrounding the photoshoot as there was when Greensboro City Council met on Tuesday, June 21 with no public notice for the official photo – a violation of the North Carolina Open Meetings Law.

The county commissioners posed with various expressions for about five minutes as a photographer took a good number of shots from ground level – and then more standing on a platform because pictures from a higher angle are often more flattering.

An associate checked the photos on a tablet computer to make sure there were some flattering options to choose from before the commissioners were allowed to return to their seats.

The shots happened right after an afternoon work session that ran long in the county-owned Truist Building next door to the old county court house.  At the work session, county staff reminded the board toward the end, that the commissioners had to save time for photos. However, the commissioners continued to discuss county business, which led to a slightly late start of the evening meeting.