Maria is my favorite portrait subject, which is complex sometimes. She doesn’t love being photographed, and she refuses to pose (I don’t like posed photos either), I often want to take a portrait of her, but don’t do it very often.

Sometimes she’s okay with it, sometimes not. My idea of portraiture is that I only take portraits of people I like or love. In my mind, those are the best photos I ever take. I took this one at lunch yesterday, I was struck by the thoughtfulness in her expression, the intelligence in her eyes.

The light behind her was special.

Backlighting like that should not be wasted.

The photo was taken at the Bog restaurant, I was talking with her about my Grand Jury panic attack. and also drawn to the detail of her hat and scarf. I thought this ought to be a black and white portrait since black and white photos are more emotional to me.

The famous photographers take the same portraits over and over again, but I am not famous enough to get away with that with my wife. Maria is a cauldron of feelings and emotions, she almost never looks the same five minutes in a row.

This photo captured her edginess, she looks like she is about to get pissed off at me for taking her portrait, but she hasn’t quite decided yet. So I moved fast and got the portrait I wanted.

I was a reporter, and a pretty good one, and I got used to annoying people by asking them questions they didn’t want to answer and taking photos they didn’t want me to take.

It’s in my nature now. And it’s gotten mutual.

Maria also takes my photo very often these days – I never permitted it at all until recently. Maria is always taking photos and videos these days.

So we both have good reasons to cooperate with one another, and I don’t mind pushing the envelope. I don’t think she minded sitting for this portrait. I did edit this photo in LightRoom, and I was pleased at my ability to pull up the details in Maria’s slouch hat and scarf.

Someday I’d love to do a Maria photo show, but I can’t imagine she would ever permit it.

As I wrote this, I got a message from a blog reader worried that Bud was not getting the attention he deserved because of Zinnia, she wanted to know if I thought Bud was sad.

I thought about my new ethical messaging idea and I told her I would pass on the question, it seemed invasive and inappropriate. I’m not going to talk about my dog’s emotional state with every person on Facebook, nor will I take my dog’s emotional temperature every day.

Puppies get more attention than older dogs, at least for a while. That’s the nature of life. When you get a cute puppy, you run with it until you drop.