Tayari's Blog: Photo Credit

There were some people in my life who were insensitive to my plight—I won’t name them here. They know who they are. The author photo is just about an inch and a half tall, they reasoned. And nobody cares. The matter of dimensions, I will agree with, but that last statement is just a lie.

Here’s something that you have probably guessed—a good author photo is EXPENSIVE. And here’s something that you might not know—your publisher probably won’t pay for it. There are exceptions, I know. I know a few novelists who have been able to finagle a photo shoot on their house’s dime. And everyone I know who had funding for this sort of thing has chosen to be photographed by The Great Marion Ettlinger, heretofore referred to as (TGME).

Who can blame them? TGME has a knack for taking a writer and making her LOOK like a writer. It’s a tricky thing to explain. TGME’s photos are easily recognizable, not so much because she makes everyone look beautiful, but rather she makes a person look like she is thinking something worth writing about.

I’ll abridge this part of the story, but I did manage to finagle an appointment to sit for TGME. I spoke with her on the phone. She was charming, witty, smart. We made a date. I booked a ticket to New York! But at the last moment, it became clear that it was much too close to the “final copy” date for the photo to be developed in time. I moped. I sulked.

There is no shortage of photos of me in the world. You can see from browsing this site that I am not afraid of cameras. But I didn’t have one that showed how different I am not from when I wrote my first book. I wanted something smoky and mysterious, but I tended to come out looking precious and a little bit cute. The clock was ticking – not only because of the looming deadline, but because I was set to have braces put on my teeth in just a week. (Adult orthodontia may be a necessary evil, but will NOT do for a book jacket photo!)

And this is the good part of this story. The moment that makes a person believe in miracles and fairy godfathers. Richard Powers is my neighbor. He's a great writer, and important writer and a gadget-freak. And as you probably know, all gadget-men own the following items: MP3 player, GPS system, and a digital camera. Rick is in the upper echelon of gadget-dudes—he drives a Prius and is never far from his tablet PC. (BTW, his author photo is by TGME).

"Hey," says Rick riding by on his bicycle. "I got a new digital camera here. If we take a couple hundred pictures, I am sure that we can get one that works for you."

Anybody hoping for an ironic ending should stop reading right now.

Rick took about two hundred photos—some behind my house, a couple dozen in a park and a handful in between locations. We ended up with the one on the left side of this page. Rick Powers is not TGME—there are no artful shadows and I still look pretty much like myself. But there is something sincere and forthright about it which I can only attribute to the character of the photographer. Thanks, Rick. Good looking out.