alittlenews

Photos copyright Gary Cosby Jr. All rights reserved.

I first encountered Lynn Raye Harris on a photo assignment for The Decatur Daily.  We were writing about her because she had just won a romance writing competition.  Lynn lives in Madison and her parents live in Decatur.  You can check out Lynn’s blog or her website to see what she is working on.  When I photographed her back in August I did a post on the process of doing her portrait for the paper.  Since I am already link happy, you can check out that post too.  I told her then that when she got famous to remember her “personal” photographer so I could shoot her book jacket photo.

Guess what.  She did!  Lynn sold her first book to Harlequin, a novel due out in August titled, Spanish Magnate, Red-Hot Revenge.  A couple of weeks ago I met her and husband Mike at Lynn’s parents home in Decatur.  I had actually done a Christmas story about her mom and dad a couple of years ago.  They have traveled the world and have quite a collection of Christmas stuff from all over the globe.  Funny how paths cross and recross.  Anyway, with Mike as my sudo-director of photography and all around humorist, I was ready to photograph Lynn again.  These photos were for Lynn, her web-site and her publisher.  This is pretty unusual for a newspaper guy.  Most of the time, we shoot and move on and may not ever see that person again, much less photograph them again.

I will say this, Lynn is unnecessarily nervous about her appearance.  She is a very lovely woman who photographs easily.  (Lynn, I know you are reading this so I will take my bribe under the table thank you! LOL)  Really, Lynn does photograph well and she really didn’t pay me to say that.  The problem with photographing anyone who is not a professional model is that they tend to tense up in front of the camera.  Trying to pose is one of the hardest things in the world to do.  In fact, the best stuff with Lynn came when I, or Mike, would see her doing something normal between pictures.  Then I would just have Lynn do that.  Those were more relaxed and looked better than the ones where we were trying to pose.

I did a fashion shoot with several pro models from one of the big department stores.  I was shocked.  They sent down clothes that perfectly fit the very attractive models.  I was the nervous one then.  I couldn’t screw it up man, I was working with pro models and they would know if I was professional or not.  Those were days before Strobist, you know, BS, and I am sure I must have looked like a bit of an idiot to people who were accustomed to working with pro fashion photographers.  We all have our day my friends.  We all have our day! The point was, I had to do almost no directing.  As soon as I gave them an idea of what I wanted to do, they just did it and did it again and again to make sure I had the shot.  Then they would freelance a bit and do something better than what I had asked. Well, that is the exception.  The rule is that most people would give an arm and a leg not to have to “pose” for the camera.  They feel awkward and uncomfortable in front of the lens.  So the job of photographer also becomes one of director, psychologist and motivator as well as comforter.

If you don’t seem confident or competent behind the camera, you can’t expect the person in front of the camera to be anything other than a reflection of yourself.  Okay, funny story.  Both times I have photographed Lynn I have had equipment that simply refused to work.  Both times it was a blasted Pocket Wizard.  Man, there is nothing that will cause you more grief than a PW that won’t fire.  To make matters worse, the one giving me problems this time was up a set of stairs.  I guess I was up and down four times before everything began to work.  Of course, I blamed it on Lynn because, seriously, this only happened when I was photographing her.  I am thinking electromagnetic field interference caused by hair spray, or something!  Or maybe it was just batteries.  I like the electromagnetic thing better myself.  Anyway, in this case a little self-deprecating commentary will help keep everything moving and, even if I look incompetent, at least everyone gets a laugh or two.

Oh, and going up and down the stairs all those times actually yielded some good fruit aside from the extra cardio workout.  One of those times coming back down the stairs I saw a better shooting angle than I had before and one of my favorite pictures was done moments later from above Lynn with her leaning forward on the steps toward me.  So even you problems and mistakes can be turned in your favor.  At least it is a good thing to remind yourself of while you are looking incompetent.

Technically, these are straightforward, two light portraits.  The main light is a Lumedyne fired through an Octobank.  The second light is another Lumedyne fired direct as a background light or hair light, depending on the location.  The second light was also used as a bounce fill with the ceiling and wall serving as reflector in two setups.  The images were done with the Canon EOS 5D and a 24-70 f2.8 and a 70-200 f2.8.  Everything else is just finding good spots and shooting until something good happened, and of course, listening to Mike’s running banter and watching him show Lynn how to pose.  Too funny!

Photos copyright Gary Cosby Jr.  The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.