DO YOU TAKE THIS WOMAN……

By MICHAEL PERKINS

AS I WRITE THIS, I am marking my twentieth anniversary with my wife Marian. Over the years I have written much in these pages about her role as the central muse for my photography. I may not always have delivered on my intention to glorify her in photos, or try to convey her profound influence on how I make them, but I have had a helluva lotta fun trying.

She is, as a person who’s generally not keen on having her picture made, someone that I can seldom pose. The very things that static, formal stagings do for some others are not where her comfort zone lies, and I can only compromise the results by barking out any instruction more complicated than “look over here”. My best strategy is to get in and get out, and quickly. Candids all the way. No “say cheese” or standing her up with a travel destination as a backdrop. I have to make images of her that, before the invention of the camera, would only have existed in my own eye, rooted in our private universe of shared memories. If I can squeeze even a drop or two of that formula from my Nikon, I have more than beaten the game.

One those rare occasions when she approves of the results, usually with only a “that one’s not too bad”, I feel like Ansel, Eisenstadt and Leibovitz all rolled into one. But, to be honest, as with much of my photography, I learn a lot more from the ones that got away, the near-misses. It’s like the old joke about carving an elephant by trimming away anything that doesn’t, you know, look like an elephant. Marian is about fifteen different women to me at various times, and on any given day I can’t predict which one will show up for work. Thankfully, they are all worth pursuing, and all have their own secrets to potentially reveal themselves to a lens. I take pot luck and sometimes take home a miracle.

Like all passionate pursuits, photographing my wife is its own reward, regardless of what actually gets captured in the box. It was great fun chasing her all those years ago, and, armed with a camera, I get to take up the chase all over again, whenever I want. I cannot imagine having her as both subject and audience, just as I cannot imagine my life without her on my arm.

The other arm I’ll keep free.

You know, just in case I need to snap the shutter……