Jess LeClair Photography Blog

Yes, folks, you read it right! My work has been published in the very first issue of a brand spanking new magazine called Catharsis. You can buy a copy of it at their Lulu storefront. You can also download a pdf of the magazine (it’s less, but you still have to pay) just to see it. There is also a free sample of the magazine, but its only 19 of the 55 pages and alas, my image isn’t included in those 19 pages. Bummer.

However. Because I am so nice (and because the image is already up on flickr!) here is the image that was published:

I made this photocollage (AKA a Hockney, a joiner, a photomontage) while I was living out in L.A. (2001-2002). Creating it was about a lot of things for me, but mostly the way that women tend to feel they have multiple-personality disorder about their bodies and the extremes we go with eating or purging. Also the deeply mixed messages we are handed by society and the media, especially in advertising.

I did this with film and prints so no digital manipulation at all. I just photographed it again to get it into the computer. Making this kind of image is one of my favorite things to do. So here are a few more:

I did this one while I was living in Ireland. This is a lovely little street corner in Galway. This was also done with film and put together by just stacking the prints and taping them down. Its really much better to see it big, so if you click on the pictrue and go to my flickr site, you can see it bigger. Also, if anyone is interested in buying a print of any of these, they are all for sale. Email me for more information.

This one is one of my favorites and one of the first entirely digital ones I did. In March of 2006, I flew to Seattle to help my brother move out of his apartment and pack up his little bitty Honda Civic with all his worldly possessions (and a few otherworldly possessions) so he could move back to the east coast (he’s in Cambridge now). On the way, instead of going straight back home, the two of us drove all the way down the west coast and into the desert to Las Vegas so he and my friend James could throw me a little bachelorette party. This image is a record of that drive from Seattle to Las Vegas. Each photo is from a different point in during the two and a half days it took us to get to there. We went from snow and sleet in Seattle through rain and wind and vivid bright green fields to finally arid desert and neon lights. Its hard to see all those pieces when it is this tiny on the screen. Its best viewed at its largest size, so click on the photo and see it on my flickr site!

This is another digital one. Its an abandoned school bus in Belfast that someone is using as a storage bin. Its just jam packed with stuff. So I let it really distort in the middle there. Again, its best seen big.

I’ve also done these types of collage as portraits.  I have lots more to say about that, but this post is getting very long, so I think it will have to wait for another post!

To Be Continued…

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

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!