I’ve been trying to take a portrait of Cassandra Conety for some months now, and I had some great full-face shots of her – she is going in my portrait show, “Cambridge People,” at the Round House Cafe,  in September, but I was troubled about it. Cassandra has a great and expressive face, but it didn’t say much about who she was.

Some portraits are simply close-ups of someone’s face, and those are fine.

But when I can, I want the picture to show something about them.

I get a little twitchy when some of the photos don’t really show a bit about the life of the subject, where they work, what’s around them, what they are about. When that happens, I got back again an again until we figure it out.

I don’t know a lot about her life,  I only see her at the vets – she is a tech at the Cambridge Valley Veterinary Service, where I often go with my dogs.I know she is a country girl, she loves the outdoors, and loves goats and dogs.

And when I think of her, I think of her soft and easy and calming way with animals. All of my dogs love her, and they barely seem to notice they are getting stuck with needles or poked and prodded in sensitive places. Fate comes tearing into the vet office, looking everywhere for her.

Red has been doing massage and laser work with Cassandra, and I have known her for years now, she has seen a lot of my ups and downs. She inspires trust and affection, in animals and people, she is unusual. How do I capture this? Yesterday I brought Red in for his laser treatments, and I asked if we could put him up on the operating table, Red is calm and stoic, I knew he would stay there.

That would give me a better angle than I had when the treatments were done on the floor, it was hard to get a perspective down there So we put him up on the table, and then I turned on the operating room overhead lights, throwing some light on Cassandra’s and on Red. There, I thought, I had it, the photograph shows Cassandra, her environment, her gentle, thoughtful way of treating animals, and the trust and connection between her and Red.

The surgery room adds a touch of drama to the photo.

Digital photography is fast and impulsive, but portraits challenge you to slow down and actually think about what you are doing. I like this photo and the hard-nosed curator thinks it ought to go into the show. Portrait photography is defined in many ways, I consider the effort to capture the soul of a human being.