More than just a picture

The word beauty is unavoidable … it accounts for my decision to photograph … There appeared a quality, beauty seemed the only appropriate word for it, in certain photographs, and I am compelled to live with the vocabulary of this new sight …

Robert Adams, "On Being a Photographer"

Many people see my work and contact me - usually about shooting their wedding. Shannon, however, was different in that she simply wanted a Bridal Portrait. As with many people the budget was tight so rather than wedding coverage she wanted this one image - to her it was more important than a collection of images created around an event. Curious I asked her why and she told me her story. We spoke for about 15 minutes and even cried together on the phone. Life had not always been kind to Shannon and this event, this image, marked a milestone, a turning point in her life. She wanted a portrait that would affirm to the world that she was indeed a woman to be valued and cherished and that she had found someone who felt so strongly about her worth that he would join his life to hers. In a sense this portrait was as much about redemption as it was about a bride.

Some artists are shy about using words like beauty as they feel it's too cliche or pedantic. Back in the 1980s I had an exhibit of my work displayed at Virginia Wesleyan College and I borrowed a title for the exhibit and the lecture I gave from a book published by Aperture Press that was a collection of essays by Robert Adams. The book was "Beauty in Photography: In Defense of Traditional Values" and in it Adams wrote most eloquently about the place of beauty in art. In one essay he even questioned if art could depict evil because of its inherent tether to the finer aesthetics.


I do not feel it would be a cliche to ask if I achieved the goal that my client set for me. These, and I say this in all humility, are beautiful portraits, or perhaps more correctly, portraits of a beautiful woman. As in any session or wedding my job is so much easier when I simply let the subject speak for themselves.