Lou O’ Bedlam’s Friday Feature: Marcy Vernier

By Lou Noble on August 14th, 2009

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I first picked up a camera to get to know people better, as an excuse to talk to people, find out more about them.

I don’t know how it is for other photographers, but the important moments in my…I don’t even know what to call it, really.  Career? Hobby? This thing I do with pictures.

The important moments in this thing I do with pictures are all crystal clear to me.  I can remember the when and why I first picked up a Polaroid camera.

I remember when I ordered my all-time favorite camera from eBay, a week before Hurricane Katrina.

And I can remember when I decided to ask Marcy, and her roommate Barbara, to pose for my first photo shoot.

The reasons then were pretty much the same as the reasons now.  Beautiful women I wanted to get to know better.  Only back then it was less about the photos, more about getting to know people.  Because I’d been acquainted with the two ladies for years, but had only recently discovered that all of us had a love of reading that differentiated us from the rest of our group.

And as I was still getting the hang of my camera, I figured it was an excellent way to kill several birds with one stone.  Hang out with Marcy and Barbara, talk about books and such, all the while taking pictures.

These days, I’ll take maybe three Polaroids during a shoot.  I’ve three different cameras I regularly use, and what with Polaroid film being both rare and expensive, I save the shots for something special, a look, a particular scene.

But back then, Polaroid film was cheap and plentiful.  That first shoot I ended up using eight 10 packs of film had a small stack of photos after we’d finished.

More importantly, I had two new friends.

It might all have been different if Marcy hadn’t been awesome.  If I’d gone there and had a horrible time. If, instead of spending two hours getting to know truly interesting people, I’d stumbled through awkward conversation and stiff photos.

Fortunately, that wasn’t the case.  I’ve photographed Marcy again several times these last few years, watching her as she changed careers, finished college, found herself a Grade A boyfriend.  It’s another perk of being a photographer, being able to document how people change. Or, in Marcy’s case, how they remain excellent people through change.

Because one photo shoot can definitely tell you certain things about a person, certain truths.  But being able to follow someone, see how they are over a passage of time, a fuller sense of a person comes to light.

Which was the whole point, in the first place.