Today for your delectation and delight, three recent (January 2013) photos of me by Jennifer Durham. (You can see bigger versions by clicking through.)
The first is my new official Author Photo: the picture that goes on the book jacket of Hild and accompanies reviews (should one be lucky enough to get any in places that run author photos as well as cover graphics). I was artfully lit and photographed by Jennifer--who also artfully smoothed out some of the dings and dents and creases acquired in my 50+ years of standing on the surface of a planet that hurtles through the cosmos at a bazillion million kilometers per hour, and as a result of not always eating what's good for me and almost always drinking what's bad...
This one is probably my favourite, the one that most resembles my interior picture of myself. It won't work for a book jacket--readers, apparently, prefer their authors to look right at them--but I sent it to my publicist at Farrar, Straus and Giroux in the hope that, one day, some fabulous book-focused journal will run one of those juicy long profiles about me and/or
Hild, and that this might make a good accompaniment.
 |
| Photo © Jennifer Durham |
And then there's this. It was an experiment in lighting. Jennifer is really, really good at knowing how to emphasise and sharpen (and soften and hide) with light, and she wanted to see what a black and white face-only thing would look like. The proofs looked okay, perhaps a bit stark, but then I said: why don't we leave my eyes their real colour and see what happens? The contrast is surprisingly subtle. Most people I've shown it to aren't keen. "Freaky!" they say. "Weird!" But I kind of like it.
 |
| Photo © Jennifer Durham |
Also, I've seen the first pass cover art for
Hild. It is going to be a knockout. But that's all I can say right now. But I'm chortling...
