Jess LeClair Photography Blog

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.