In this short episode, host Suki Wessling reflects on the experience of having the full glamour treatment at the studio of w Jana Marcus. [Click for transcript]
Click here for credits and to listen to the full episode, “Exactly Who We Are: The Portraiture of Jana Marcus.”
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[00:00:37] Suki Wessling: A few of us are sitting on my friend Sharon’s bed, and we’re all discussing which late 1970s model we look like. Sharon says I look a bit like Cheryl Tiegs, but we all agree that I’m not tall enough to be a model. Maybe, she suggests helpfully, you could be a hand model.
We all look down at my red knuckled, stubby fingered hands. Maybe not. [00:01:00]
This is your host, Suki Wessling, and this is a Minibabble. Just me, talking to you about trying to be glamorous.
If you’re a regular listener, you may remember that a few months ago, I interviewed photographer Jana Marcus and some of the mature women who have taken part in her 40 over 40 project.
So many of the women said that they felt really energized and changed by the experience of being in front of Jana’s camera. Many of them, as older women, had stopped seeing themselves as beautiful. And Jana definitely knows how to fix that.
But poor [00:02:00] Jana, then she got me for a client. Me with my many years since that day sitting on Sharon’s bed. Me with my complete inability to think about how I want others to see me. Heck, I don’t even know how I want to see me.
I tried to be helpful.
I tried to be many things, including sassy.
But frankly, I was happy to let Jana portray me as she wanted to. She definitely helped me feel
As I got near the end, I got tired, and apparently there’s nothing more tiring than being a model, and I’m including being an [00:03:00] Olympic athlete in this list, as well as heavy yard work and building skyscrapers. Modeling is rough, and I decided I wanted to hide behind the huge flowers I was posing with.
We met on Zoom a week later to go through the images. Funny, but I still liked that picture of myself hiding behind the flowers. It was fascinating to talk to Jana about the difference between the shots clients choose and what she thinks are the best ones. I felt like I had a little bit of insight into that, at least in my own case.
There was one shot in particular that Jana liked, and I agreed that it was a great photo, except for one thing. I didn’t look like myself. It’s a little hard to describe what that means given that Jana was completely correct when she responded, I can assure you that you were the only one. I was taking pictures of that day,
But I was onto something because when I showed it to my [00:04:00] sister, she also said it didn’t look like me. Still photographs tell the truth, but they also create a fantasy. In my case, in the photos I chose, which you can see at babblery.com, I look relaxed and confident like I pose as a model every day, but that clearly is fiction. The truth was behind the camera, not in front of it.
Jana believes that every mature woman deserves to have her beauty, her confidence, her sassiness, and yes, even her fierceness shown to the world.
And she did that for me. Even though in my ambivalence, I think I was a bit of a tough customer.
[00:05:00]
[00:04:59] Suki Wessling: You can hear the episode Exactly Who We Are. The Portraiture of Jana Marcus on babblery.com. That’s B A B B L E R Y.com.
The song I love your hair is by June and Jean Millington on freemusicarchive.org.
The Babblery is produced with support from KSQD in Santa Cruz, California. [00:06:00] [00:07:00] [00:08:00]
