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| Hearsay: |
The Millions has a funny piece on the absurdities of some jacket photos. Listen, I once had a photographer ask me to climb up on a ledge on Susan Sontag’s roof so he could get the Empire State Building in the shot. We do what we’re told when people pay attention to us.
There are a few of Ettlinger’s photos I like. The full-body shots are better than the close-ups. Take the one, for instance, of David Foster Wallace; his plaid jacket, his downward gaze, and the sky above, create a lovely, even haunting, composition. Or the one, of James Ellroy: he’s gone whole hog with the photo’s anachronistic qualities, and it’s fun. Other full body shots, however, are a disaster. Hey, Melissa Bank, did you learn that pose in yoga? If I were to title this picture, I’d call it, “The Failed Seduction.” We’ve all been there, Ladies, haven’t we?
Some of the close-ups, particularly of the women, are just weird. I hate when authors cup their own head with their hands. What, will it fall off? Clearly, the writer is trying to appear thoughtful. Most of the time, though, they look like they’re starring in a pain killer ad. Ann Patchett and Amy Hempel’s pictures are the worst examples of this, although, to be fair, this is an epidemic in many author photos, not just ones by Ettlinger.
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October 29th, 2009 at 7:57 pm
I recall some advice from an commercial publishing editor’s blog: “Have lots of blurbs on the back cover, and for god’s sake no author photo with your damned cat!”
This made me think of the back cover of ‘The Sentimental Agents’ by Doris Lessing: no text, only a photo of a lady and her cat.
I think she won the Nobel Prize a few weeks later.
There should be a list of photos of authors + cats. Atwood did one for ‘Cat’s Eye’.
November 1st, 2009 at 1:33 pm
I have to say I like cats. That said, a part of me wonders if there’s any real value in author photos at all.
November 17th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
A photographer of writers, I sold a photo of an author with a cat once, but it was an unusual case. Here the book’s editor, Victoria Wilson, talks to Dick Teresi for his New York Times piece on author photos (12/12/93): “There are no rules,” she said, then immediately reversed herself. “Well, I have one rule: No cats.” She paused again. “I broke that rule with Diane Johnson’s ‘Natural Opium.’ I made an exception because the book is a collection of travel pieces. And there she was wearing a pith helmet. The cat was in a tree.” Although I was not named in the article, that was my shot and I think it was a good photograph. Since some of the travel described in the book was set in Africa, where one might indeed find a cat in a tree — although granted not a domestic longhair! — it seemed to me an appropriate and amusing image. I did take photos of another writer as well with her cats and one of these images, of P.D. James and the all-white Polly Hodge sitting Sphynx-like on a chair, made its way not onto a jacket but into her memoir ” A Time to be in Earnest”– and rightly so, as Polly Hodge was a beloved part of this author’s life.