A Brief History of Publicity Photos I Have Taken

(1) In the beginning, there was Entertainment Weekly magazine. On short notice, I was flown to NYC, then taken to an estate near West Point where I was met by the photographer, her lighting assistants, a stylist and a groomer, and a man driving a custom bus that he said was last used by U2 (this is where the styling and the grooming would happen). As an unknown author and employee of public television, I usually travel on my own custom bus, with my own stylist and groomer, but in this case I was persuaded to go with what was provided. Over the course of about eight hours, I ate catered food, tried on high-fashion clothes, then stood in the cold for hours trying to make the face of someone who'd lost his brother in a terrorist bombing (not eighteen years ago, but, say, last week). The photo appeared in the magazine a week or so later. I am convinced that some beard stubble was photo-shopped in to give me the look of a man who had holed up in an empty cabin for years wrestling with his demons. It worked. People told me I looked handsome, although, decidedly, sad. I bought two copies of the magazine but had no idea what to do with them.

Note to self: It's easy to look pained when you lose feeling in all of your extremities

(2) The Village Voice. A woman e-mailed on short notice to say that she'd like to photograph me in Far Rockaway, Long Island. Once it was established that I didn't live in New York and the Village Voice had no photo budget for travel (never mind the stylist and groomer and custom bus), the photographer agreed to come to Boston. We met at a restaurant across from Revere Beach. The day before, she said, the planes flying into Logan Airport were coming in low over the beach (perfect for a sad story that begins with an air disaster, no?). Now there were no planes, however, and it was well below zero. I stood on the beach making more sad faces (or faces that later just looked sad but were really grimaces about the cold). The photographer did a remarkable job of taking photos with fingers that were blue with cold and numbness. Revere Beach was just a half hour from where i've lived for more than ten years but I'd never been there. It was beautiful in the dim light of a fading February day.

(3) The Brown Alumni Monthly. This was a welcome change: photographs indoors. Another welcome change; the photographer wanted to see my brother's notebooks. It's odd how a book about him has become so much about me. This photographer was also the first to suggest it might be okay for me to smile, or at least to look like someone who had dried the tears a bit over the eighteen years or so since the Lockerbie bombing.

Is he about to cry? Is the full force of the loss just hitting him now?

(4) The Boston Globe. Back outside. The photographer was not a freelancer like the others. He was an employee of the newspaper, and he was tired of the news business. I knew this because just after I shook his hand and said hello he said, "I'm tired of the news business." He drove me to his own favorite bleak landscape where I could make my now trademarked sad faces.

On my second round with the Globe, I really nailed my look of pained contemplation

(5) The Boston Globe Again. The first photo was for the Boston Globe magazine. This one was for a feature in the Arts section. The same photographer was assigned. He was surprised to see me. He had spent a lot of our first meeting telling me about his life (much more interesting than mine it seemed), but now he seemed curious about me. "What did you do that I'm taking your picture twice in a month?" Before I could really answer, I was back against a morbid backdrop looking out into the distance at the hovering ghost of my brother, say, making the face, now, of someone who had come through the sadness and was bravely (but, still, I guess a little sadly) soldiering on.

(6) People Magazine. No photographers. Authors are told to send in a candid photo of themselves. When I said I didn't have any such photos I was told to buy a disposable camera, shoot a roll, and send in a selection of the best shots. Most were underexposed. A few looked like they should have a booking number underneath. In the end, I took a photo in my living room. And the joke was on all of them, because there, on my face, in the privacy of my own home, was the unmistakable hint of a smile.

posted by Ken Dornstein on March 26, 2006 01:21 PM