Who Do You Become

I am not who I think I am. I am not who you think I am.  I am who I think you think I am. 

– Charles Horton Cooley

“A photographic portrait is a picture of someone who knows he’s being photographed, and what he does with this knowledge is as much a part of the photograph as what he’s wearing or how he looks.”

– Richard Avedon

Jill arrives for her shoot. 

She’s married to a Tour de France cyclist and looks like she could be one herself.  She lays open her suitcase. It bursts with brand new lingerie she bought just for this shoot. Everything still has tags on it. 

Jill doesn’t have much experience wearing pretty little things. 

She brings a $350 bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape. 

I help her button and zip things up. 

We drink the wine. 

She shares her marital woes. 

I coach her through the poses. 

Click – click – click. 

“Oh my GOD….  I love these… are you serious?!” 

She gushes over the previews on the back of my camera. 

I blame it on the wine. 

I do my job and complete the shoot. 

One week later, I deliver her proofs. 

Two weeks later, I begin receiving invitations:

“When can I get a drink with the photographer who changed my life?”

I’m blowing Jill off. 

Jill refers her friend Cathy to me for a boudoir shoot. 

“Ever since you did Jill’s photos, she’s been a completely different woman”.

After Cathy’s shoot, I responded. 

“Hi Jill, let’s do Thursday at 5. Poplar Street Pub.”

Thursday, 4:55 pm: I take the first sips of my beer. 

I see the door open in my peripheral vision. 

A stunning woman enters: little black dress, black boots, glowing like she just finished sucking off God and his two best friends. 

She walks toward me. 

“JILL!!?”

“Your shoot changed my life”.

“Go on.” 

“I finally left my abusive husband, I took over the family business. I now have a lover in Paris who treats me like a queen. I constantly have 25-year-old guys hitting on me.”

“Damn!”

“And it is all because of your photographs. Seeing myself through your eyes – seeing my pictures on the back of your camera… seeing that I really WAS beautiful – that changed everything for me.”