I was instructed to bring along a variety of clothes with me so Dan could choose what he wanted. I live in turtlenecks and jeans, hoodies and flannel ... not exactly appropriate for a real portrait. Dan's idea was that he wanted to capture ME, whatever that is. I'm not formal or stuffy, what you see is pretty much what you get ... big personality, according to Dan. Most of the clothes I brought didn't work, but two turtlenecks, one black and one grey, a black sweater, a black dress with a good neckline, and some scarves for color made the cut. He was mostly concentrating on my face and shoulders, so it didn't matter what I had on below that.
I learned some things about myself during this process. Mostly, I discovered for the first time that I am not particularly aware of myself. In fact, I tend to concentrate on everyone BUT myself, which proved to be challenging for both the photographer AND model while we were working.
Dan and I had more than one exchange that went something like this:
Dan: "Oh, that was perfect, do it again."
Me: "Do what?"
Dan: "That funny smirk just now ... it was perfect." (you can also insert any number of other descriptions of expressions.)
Me: "It must be involuntary, because I have no idea what you're talking about."
Dan: heavy sigh
We did two photo sessions, with a delicious lunch in between. Dan told me today that he ended up with over 400 photos, most of which are throwaways. Some of them are fun, he said, and he sent over 55 that he thought may be suitable. He also said that two of the ones in this group are his favorites, but he won't tell us which ones they are until we make our choices.
After Dan finished photographing me, he turned his attention to setting up his lights and camera to capture a quality image of The Husband's portrait of Jim playing his harp. (I told you about this painting in THIS post in January.)
The photos in this post were taken by The Husband with his iPhone. He did mostly behind-the-scenes pics of Dan working and there are a few of me. One of the photos that he took of me is superb. It's a shame that the light was so low, and the photo is really grainy as a result, not suitable to be used for a portrait, but the composition and expression are wonderful.
After all the experimentation that we did with expressions and posing and lighting for most of the day, what seems to have captured me best was this tiny moment in time where I looked over and smiled at my husband.