I suppose it’s somewhat helpful to be sleeping with the curator of my first ever portrait show. You just have to look across the room to talk to the curator, or maybe even whisper in bed. But it has its downsides. She is tough, experienced, and unyielding.  She knows what is good and she knows what she wants. She might occasionally be insecure or decisive about some elements of life, but not about art.

She has come along on some of the shots, and I have discovered that most people would much prefer to talk to her rather than to me. Its kind of an unspoken bait-and-switch, she talks to them while I take their picture.

Only the best photos make it past her demanding eye, and some of those will not make the final cut.

I have something to say about that, but not a lot. The curator loves to curate, and she takes no prisoners and gives no quarter.  I am just another pain-in-the-ass artist.

This weekend we will spread all of the photos across the table, and some will die. She said lovely things about my photos on her blog.

Maria has done an amazing job of finding inexpensive frames and mats, I believe I will actually be able to price these photos between $100 and $120, remarkable for a black and white portrait.  The photos themselves are printed on the best archival paper.

The thing I have most disliked about photo shows is the price the photographer has to charge to make up framing and matting costs. I couldn’t bear to sell photos that cost $400 and very few people wanted to buy them. So mostly, I give my photos away.

The show will be open at the Round House Cafe in Cambridge during the first week of September and will still be up during the October Open House, which will occur on Columbus Day Weekend. There will be a reception for the photographer, the curator and the people on the walls and families of the subjects. There is a nice range of people – a farm stand worker, a brush hogger, Kelly, farm workers, a grandmother and her granddaughter, an animal rescuer, hardware store women, a hair dresser, among others.

I think Maria found a way around the cost of photo shows.  People who wish to buy them may actually be able to afford them, a long-time goal of mine. All of the proceeds will go towards her trip to India in February to teach the victims of the sex trafficking trade how to make potholders and other art.

I would love to do a Kelly Nolan show one day, Kelly inspired my portrait show and hers was the first serious portrait I took in Cambridge. Kelly’s radiant smile attracted me at first, and then her radiant soul, which the smile revealed. They say that if you wish to capture the soul of a human being, you have to shoot in black and white. I am seeing the truth of this.

The portraits were challenging to me, a reminder that I must keep challenging myself, trying new things, taking risks, learning new ideas. It would never have occurred to me to take weekly photos of the bartender/ waitress at a local tavern, but something drew me to Kelly’s poise and openness. She never once blinked at being photographed, primped, or even asked me what I was doing. She loaned me her magnificent smile.

Portraits are hard to do, they very much reflect the relationship between the subject and the photographer. It is not enough to catch a face looking at the camera, the challenge is to find a way to capture the spirit of the person. Kelly was brave enough to show me her spirit,  I had to work to get it out of some others. I didn’t ask to shoot anyone I didn’t like, or who didn’t like me.

That was a good start. I have learned so much taking these portraits, I want to keep on taking them, I believe I do have a gift for it. And I also finally have a lens for it, a used  Zeiss. For reasons I don’t want to know, the Germans made the best glass.

The response to the Kelly photos has been swift and intense and very revealing to me. When she needed $1,300 to pay vet bills for her dog and sick puppies, I wrote about it on the blog,  she got the money in two days, all of it from readers of my blog, people who looked into those smiles and saw what I see – a person of strength, character and goodness.

Kelly is not the kind of person you would normally see photographed in a magazine or on TV. Yet her face is both beautiful and uplifting. That was an important lesson for me.

In my portrait work, I sought out faces that revealed character, love, generosity of spirit, and sometimes, hard work. I’m calling the show “Faces Of Cambridge,” and I’m dedicating it to Kelly Nolan, who trusted me enough to let me, a stranger, take her photo. Kelly and I are bonded now, we trust one another.

When I first wandered around the Bog Tavern with my big black camera, I thought I might get tossed out, some of the customers there are know to get rowdy with outlanders. Now, I am often patted on the back and applauded, encouraged with shouts and cheers. I am the guy taking photos of Kelly, people move out of the way.

I love every photo I’ve taken of Kelly and I love the photos in my upcoming portrait show, including the ones the curator will nix. I am grateful for the doors that open to me. We are excited about the portrait show, I open doors are sacred to me. Maybe my next show will be a Kelly show.