Me and Robyn Werbin at the travelgirl photo shoot.

“Jan, you look like you’re being sent to Auschwitz,” the skinny, spiked-hair, oh-so-hip photographer said accusingly as I stood awkwardly in front of the white back-drop in his downtown Atlanta studio. My situation was similar only in that I was questioning what the hell I’d done to get here.
Oh, yeah. It was all my fault.
It started when I was talking with a friend who was an editor with Women’s Health & Fitness magazine. I had mentioned my new vampire-like photo on my driver’s license and she said, “We’re looking for people for our makeover feature for the magazine. Want to do it?”
“Sure,” I said. Next thing I know her mom, who was the hairstylist, came to my house to do my hair and took my hideous before photo in my kitchen proving for all that the drivers’ license incident was not a one-time thing. After washing and styling my hair we drove downtown to the photographer’s studio, where he ignored me for the first hour while a very nice woman layered on my make-up, spending 30 times longer than I do each day on that particular chore.
Since I wasn’t going to have my pick of racks of gorgeous designer clothes to choose from, I brought a few from home including the neon green Nanette Lepore sweater I bought on eBay, which I ended up wearing.
Then I was told to stand in front of the backdrop at which point, the photographer expressed his displeasure. I’ve never felt comfortable behind a camera. Well, not without a few glasses of adult beverage anyway, and this was way outside my comfort zone.

So he put on music and asked me to dance around so whatever shreds of dignity to which I’d been clinging went flying off with the first twirl. But where was the fan gently blowing my hair back, where were the assistants running over to pat my face and why wasn’t the photographer telling me how beautiful I was instead of comparing me to a future concentration camp resident? But at last it was over and I could flee back to the safety of my camera-free home.
Then the issue came out – and there I was with copy about my efforts to now embrace my curls. I did like my hair and make-up but there was no escaping that even my after photo I looked exactly like what I am – just a normal-looking-on-a-good-day woman over 40.
Don’t we all have the fantasy that if we had the make-up artist and the hair stylist and the professional photographer, we’d all look like those beauties in the magazines? Well, unfortunately for me, I got to find out the truth fantasy – even after the efforts of all those professionals, I still looked just like me, only with Liza Minnelli eyes and Betty Boop lips.
The results of my most recent photo shoot were more promising. I showed up to work at travelgirl magazine to find out that was the day for the photo shoot for the cover of our September issue. Our editor-in-chief Stephanie Oswald, who photographs beautifully, was our cover girl as part of our introduction of our very own line of luggage. (See more about that on our website.)
The photographer was Alex Martinez, a very talented and patient man who had recently shot all the “real housewives” of Atlanta for Atlanta magazine. (That is where the similarity between them and the women of travelgirl ends.) Read the full post »