The Photographer's Wife

Thanks for all the advice and good thoughts. They seem to have worked as I feel markedly improved. Well, that and the sick day I took yesterday, which allowed me to have a glorious and restful four-hour long nap. Ah, the luxury of it. (I remember throwing fits when I was a kid and had to take a nap. Now, naps are highly prized commodities.)

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On more than one occasion, people have asked me what it's like being a photographer's wife, if I ever get sick of him wanting to take my picture. The question has always made me laugh. "Peter's a landscape photographer," I'd say, "He's more likely to ask me to get out of the way than to ask to take my picture."

That was just fine with me, since I'm not really the most co-operative subject. I've too many body image issues to ever feel comfortable having my picture taken. I rarely like photographs of me, as all I can ever see are the things I don't like.

It looks like I'm going to have to come up with a different answer to the question. On Friday, Peter bought a starter studio set-up: lights, a big stand on which to hang backing paper, and those funny little umbrellas that bounce the light around. After he had his studio arranged in the garage, it wasn't long before he was asking to take my picture.

The first round of photographs were nothing to write home about, since Peter was just learning to use the lights and I was disheveled from a nap. (A few of them are funny and might find their way here, eventually.) I told Peter it was weird to be his model and if he ever told me "to work it," I would be forced to leave.

I went back into the house and sat at the kitchen table, finishing up my work-from-home day. It was dusk and the light was waning. Periodically, I could see a flash of light shoot from the garage windows. It was like watching a mad scientist's laboratory. I half-expected to hear an explosion or see green smoke.

Peter's spent a lot of his free time either working in the studio or researching studio photography. Yesterday, Peter told me he wanted to try something and could he take my picture. I was again nap-disheveled (you're going to think that's all I do in the afternoon but it's been an unusual few days), but I took a few minutes to run a brush through my hair and change my shirt.

We started with me right in front of the backing paper. Peter set up his camera, fiddled with the lights, and then took a few pictures. He gave me a few directions and I tried to take it as seriously as possible, but there was just something absurd about the whole process. Then he backed his camera up and had me take a few steps forward. Then he moved the lights as well. After more pictures, he again moved back and had me move forward. We repeated this ritual until Peter was at the front of the garage and I told him he was going to open the garage door if he wanted to reverse any further.

Turns out, he had me right where he wanted me. He was trying to take a low-key photograph. Seems the further you move the subject from the background, the darker the background gets, which makes for an interesting looking portrait.

I'm going to have to get used to having my picture taken, which isn't a bad thing. When the time comes to have the photograph taken for the back of my book, I'll both know a good photographer and know how to be a good subject.