Jess LeClair Photography Blog

I was lucky enough my freshman year at Brown University to be hired by the Theater Department as their Staff Photographer. It was quite the accomplishment. Little 18 year old me beat out 5 other candidates for the job. Our job interview was that we all had to photograph the same dress rehearsal and then they looked at the pictures we’d taken and gave the job to the one they liked best. It was more than a little nerve wracking.

Colored Museum, 1996

That job was easily one of my very favorites EVER. I was paid to photograph all the publicity stills for the newspapers and then I would come in during the final dress rehearsal and photograph the whole show for the lobby photos and for the theater archives (and what ever else they might need them for - newsletters, programs, posters etc.). It meant I got to see every single show put on by the two main stage theaters at Brown all four years I was there. Plus I got extra free tickets if I wanted to take other people with me once the show officially opened. Because of that job, my work was published in 11 different Rhode Island and Massachusetts newspapers and publications (under my maiden name, Brakeley, of course). Not bad for a college kid!

Arcadia, 1996.

Our Country’s Good, 1997

Las Meninas, 1997

Keep in mind, I was shooting with plain old Kodak color film and a little Minolta SRT101 (from the 70s). No digital, no retouching, no flash even. Just what ever came out of my camera. I didn’t even have a zoom lens! I was forever jumping up and over the empty seats in the theater and zooming up and down the aisle to get closer or farther away from the stage.

Sweeney Todd, 1998

This was one of the publicity stills for The Bacchae that was published in the Brown Daily Herald in the spring of 1998. They had this deeply annoying habit of not publishing my name, just saying “courtesy Leeds Theater” even though the theater always gave them my name with the photo. Whatever.

This is a page from The Independent, another local Providence paper. The show was Cymbeline, 1998.

Camino Real, 1998

A Flea in Her Ear, 1999

Passion Play, 1999

Artistic Licence, 1999

Marisol, 2000

Spring Dance Concert, 1998


I also photographed the dance concerts held each spring on the main stage. Dance is next to impossible to photograph if you haven’t seen it before. It was one of the few things I would ask to come in for the pre-dress rehearsal just so I could see what was coming. With theater, at least you can have an idea of what is going on and where people are going to be by what they are saying. But dance is all movement and no words! Its impossible to guess when something truly photographable is about to happen!

Spring Dance Concert, 2000

On my father’s side of the family, I have become the “go-to girl” for family photos. Every year, my grandmother sends out a holiday card with a photo of everyone in the family. Now it used to be that if you missed the day, tough luck, you weren’t in the photo that year. Very few people ever missed photo day for just that reason (well, that and my grandmother also tends to throw kick-ass parties on photo day). Alas, we have now entered the digital age. If you weren’t actually there, you can now be Photoshopped in! Amazing! And this is now my job. This is the photo I was given for the 2006 card. There are two people NOT in my family in the photo who had to be taken out, six people MISSING from the photo, and my Uncle Dave was blinking. D’oh.

With a bit of patience, a little digital magic, and photos of everyone who was missing, VOILA! A whole new historical event! One where Uncle Dave didn’t blink and the WHOLE family made it to the party!

This year was even more challenging. There were TEN people missing from the photo. TEN.

This is Before:

And here is After:

I think we all look pretty good for being at an imaginary event!

Taking people out of or putting people back into photographs seems like such a simple thing now a days. With a tool like Photoshop and the right lighting, you can put yourself anywhere in the world! But people have been manipulating photographs almost as long as photography has existed. Just ask Nikolai Yezhov.

I met Alahna when I was living in Ireland in 1999 and attending the Burren College of Art for a semester. Amazingly enough, she was also from Maine and struggling with so many of the same issues I was. We bonded very quickly.

I photographed her a lot while we were in Ireland. She is infinitely photograph-able and put up with me quite well.

I mean really, how could you not like this woman? Besides her kindness and HUGE heart, she is just, like, totally adorable!

Though this picture is kinda crappy (taken with a disposable camera in low light - yikes!) it is a great reminder of all the fun we had (and all the Guinness we drank).

One of my favorite photos of myself in Ireland is this one that Alahna took of me:

It really has nothing to do with the photo itself and everything to do with the story behind it. We were at the Cliffs of Moher (for probably the 3rd or 4th time) and Alahna noticed this little display that was playing Irish music. And she said, “Oh! Music! Stand in front of it and I’ll take your picture.”

Um, you want to take a picture of me with the music?

Hence the look on my face.

Our friendship survived the long voyage back across the pond and has strengthened so much in the intervening years. We both finished college and struggled with what to do next in our lives.

And then this guy happened.

And then this happened (as these things tend to).

She is five months pregnant in this picture. I took this at her baby shower in August of 2006.

At the time, she and Tom (the guy) were (and sadly still are) living in Colorado. So when she was home in Maine on a summer visit, her parents took the opportunity to throw her a big ol’ party. It was amazing and sweet to see the huge outpouring of love for her and this new life growing inside of her. The party was held in the gym of the elementary school where her mother works and where Alahna attended once upon a time. I stole her away from the party for a few precious minutes to take some photos.

Much to my dismay, these are the only pictures I was able to take of her during her pregnancy. The next time I saw her was almost a year later and by then the baby was very much on the outside.

Armando Mael, AKA Manny, is almost 8 months old in these pictures. Hes got such a great expression on his face here. Like he is not quite sure what the thing strapped to my face is or why its pointed in his direction.

Alahna can make him laugh SO HARD. There are very few things better than baby giggles and his are some of the best.

Alahna and Tom were both very excited I caught this face on film. Evidently he makes it all the time, but this is the first time they’d gotten him to do it for a camera. Holy Strange Face, Batman!

I love how concerned he looks in this picture.

Alahna’s sister is also named Jessica, so I will be his Auntie Jess while she gets to be his Aunt Jessie. Terribly confusing, I know, but what else are we to do? He has to call me something! Hopefully they’ll all move back to Maine in another year or so when Alahna is finished with her advanced schooling. And then I’ll have this little guy and his momma to photograph to my hearts content! Just as with Laura and her family, it is so much fun to have a whole new generation of friends to play with. I love my work!

Mary is a gifted psychic and medium (and the mother of the bride Maggie!). She wanted a new head shot for her website and asked if we could do a small shoot before the wedding! This one (above) is, I think, my favorite.

On August 11, I was honored to be the photographer for Maggie and Steve’s wedding reception in South Portland, Maine. Having been officially married exactly one week prior on the island of Samoa, this was the big party for friends and family back home who weren’t there for the real thing. It was a great party!

To see the full set of photos from this wonderful event, please visit my flickr site.

For about as long as I can remember, I’ve loved photographing people. When I was in High School, one of my favorite things to do was to take some friends, grab my camera and have an adventure. I’d find someplace interesting, plonk the friend down in the middle of it and somehow together we would tell a story through the pictures. Very often, we had no idea what the heck we were saying, but that was beside the point. The photos were what mattered.

In college, I was the same way. Most of the time, shortly after making a new friend, I’d pop the question: “Can I photograph you some time?” Even developed a few full blown narratives with pictures. Duane Michals was (is) my hero.

But I always enjoy returning to the single portrait. There is something about catching that moment - that fraction of a second - when the person you are photographing drops their pretense and just is. Even make-up-ed and in costume, that moment is still there. You just have to be patient. I love that moment. Its another one of those things that makes what I do so very worth it.

People have so many different reasons for asking for head shots. I’ve done my fair share of actors just getting into the biz, but lately it seems I’ve been working with people with very different agendas. For example, Gary here is a piano player and radio DJ.

And Billi is a personal chef and baker. I did an extensive set of portraits of her and her farm last summer as she was setting up her website.

She loved having images of herself outside in her garden instead of the very stuffy studio shots one often sees of professional chefs. She wanted a variety of images for lots of different purposes and was very happy with what we ended up with.

For more images of Billi and Firefly Farm, please visit my flickr site.

This is my friend Laura. I have known Laura since we were both 4 years old (yeah, that’s me asleep on her shoulder). For those keeping count, that is 25 years. This picture was taken in 1983, on the way back home from a trip to the Boston Children’s Museum (my family was living in Massachusetts at the time). It was a long ride, we’d had a fun day, and I was pooped. Seriously, how many five year olds do you know who would put up with letting someone sleep on them AT ALL let alone in a bumpy car? That is life long friend material right there.

Our families lived in the same neighborhood and we all became great friends. We used to take ski vacations together. On this one, in 1985, Laura gave me the chicken pox. It took me a long time to forgive that one.

My family moved away from Massachusetts in 1986. But Laura and I stayed in touch. This photo was taken in 1989 in a subway stop in Washington DC (we were showing off? maybe? who knows…). Laura’s mom and her future step-dad invited me a long with them on a business trip to DC. It was the first time I’d ever flown in a plane. And even though it had been a few years since we’d seen each other, we fell right back into step, as the best and easiest of friends do. As we grew, our trips to visit grew less and less frequent, but we always sort of knew where the other was and what they were up to.

In 2000, Laura married a wonderful man named Shane. And in 2001, they had a baby. A boy. Jackson.

This photo was taken in 2003, the very day I met Jackson for the first time. It’s such an amazing thing, meeting the next generation. Indescribable, really. It was also around this time they decided it was time to move to Maine (finally!). I was so thrilled to have my oldest friend back within a reasonable driving distance!

Less than a year later, their daughter, Abby, was born. And now I have TWO amazing new friends.

I get to play with them and watch them grow.

And see them change and blossom. Its hard to put into words how deeply cool I find all of this.

To get to photograph them and know them and know that I’ll be part of the things they remember from being little.

Such a gift.

This is just one of the many reasons I love what I do. I get to record life and watch it unfold all around me. I get to document some of the most important times in peoples lives. It is an honor and a privilege and just so much freaking fun. Especially when you get to do it for people you love.

To see more photos of Jackson and Abby, check out my flickr site. There are two sets, taken a year apart. Its amazing how much can change in just one little year. You can tell that in the second set, they are much more used to me and my camera. They had a very hard time staying serious and following any sort of directions from me. They just wanted to play! Not that I minded - on the contrary, I love just following them to see where they lead. Such imaginations on these two, I swear.

So thank you Laura, for continuing to be one of my dearest friends. In another 25 years, I’ll be photographing the kid’s weddings, telling stories of Abby screaming “TICKLE ME!” and Captain Jackson of Playground Rocket Ship Alpha, and posting photos of us with gray hair and relieved looks on our faces.

You may kiss eachother, originally uploaded by jess_leclair.

On October 8, 2005, I was honored to be the photographer for my dear friend Celeste’s wedding to Joe. Together they have a beautiful daughter Sofia. The whole event was just lovely and so very much fun. It was a joy to be there and share the day! Check out my flickr site (under “Celeste and Joe” the “Weddings” collection) to see more pictures from the day.

This was actually the last wedding I shot with film before making the switch to digital. As nerve wracking as it was at first, it is SO MUCH easier to be totally digital. Where as before I had to worry about running out of film and should I use black and white film or color film and what speed should it be and on and on. Now, I just click-click-click knowing I can take as many photos as I want (especially now with my 2 gig card!) and make any of it color or black and white and I can make instant decisions about what to change if there is not enough light. It’s so much easier! And printing capabilities are improving every day. It is so much easier to make really beautiful wedding albums now too! So much fun to be had! Yay for technology!

The red couch, originally uploaded by jess_leclair.

This photo was taken of my brother Dan and me at our step-cousin Jackie’s wedding, September 9, 2006. Though I wasn’t the official photographer on this particular wedding, I did take a fair number of photos (you can head on over to my flickr site to see more). I have to give props to the women who were officially responsible for the photography that night for one very specific thing. This red couch. It was a small touch of brilliance. They set up this very inviting couch with a camera facing it. On the couch was the remote for the camera. Anyone could just come up, sit down and take their own photo! It was better than a photo booth! Though I must say, they should have made more people aware of it. We just sort of stumbled drunkenly over and started fiddling with things. At which point the photographer’s assistant came over and told us what it was. We got to see some of the images later and they were a total riot. By the end of the evening people were getting REALLY stupid.

Good times, good times.

Sweet Mollie, originally uploaded by jess_leclair.

This was taken the same day that Mollie took her very first un-aided steps into her Daddy’s arms. What a day!