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“Dude, you're like a leprechaun with a camera!” said a fellow photographer, “The one-and-only shots just jump at your lens! The timing gods love you!”
I've been taking photos since high school marching band, capturing my young and foolish days in young and foolish ways. But even then with my little Argus brand 1.5 megapixel I was taking fuzzy pictures that my friends were drawn to.
In 2005 I bought a more proper camera and started chasing butterflies, my kids, and anything that didn't get away fast enough. I got all dusty laying on the ground to get different angles and I almost broke my leg once climbing up on a roof. Also, I think I was being stalked by a mountain lion in Bogart Park once. I took pictures of family and friends and they'd tell me “wow, you actually made me look good.” Secretly I knew that it really had nothing to do with me. Cameras don't lie. But it's that sort of honesty and naturalism that I like in photos, where people are relaxed and having so much fun that they look their very best.
And so, in 2007, I started up a little photography business called Terwilliger Photo.
I've been taking photos since high school marching band, capturing my young and foolish days in young and foolish ways. But even then with my little Argus brand 1.5 megapixel I was taking fuzzy pictures that my friends were drawn to.
In 2005 I bought a more proper camera and started chasing butterflies, my kids, and anything that didn't get away fast enough. I got all dusty laying on the ground to get different angles and I almost broke my leg once climbing up on a roof. Also, I think I was being stalked by a mountain lion in Bogart Park once. I took pictures of family and friends and they'd tell me “wow, you actually made me look good.” Secretly I knew that it really had nothing to do with me. Cameras don't lie. But it's that sort of honesty and naturalism that I like in photos, where people are relaxed and having so much fun that they look their very best.
And so, in 2007, I started up a little photography business called Terwilliger Photo.
My Pat Benatar photos featured in Life After 50 Magazine!
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My second shooter and photobooth runner guy is Willie. Willie is my fiance, best friend, and the best guy you could ever ask to hang out with your guy. He's great with kids, he fits in with everyone, and he totally doesn't mind being covered in backpacks or having pockets full of water bottles or pacifiers.
Without Willie I would never get anything done at home! He makes me better when I'm sick, he feeds me, and he even puts on my socks. I totally did not train him to do that, he just came that way. Every team needs a Willie. When there's a Willie, there's a way. |
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Other than being a photographer, I am a published author, a mom to two little boys named Ty and Wade, and I play the ukulele—not well, but I do play it. My guy Willie and I home school Ty who is in third grade. My kids are awesome and handsome as can be, but I hire other photographers to capture their essence. It seems that "the cobbler's children go barefoot" as I cannot for the life of me take a decent picture of them--EVER. Give me a kid I've never met or maybe interacted with all of twice, I'll give you an amazing portrait that captures the child's personality and very soul. Give me my own kids to photograph? Dorky smiles and uncomfortably scrunched faces.
(Photo to the left by Rey V.)
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My two favorite words are “create” and “inspire.” Interestingly enough, I am blind in my left eye, and so I always like to think that my right eye creates while the left eye inspires, if that makes sense. My photography style is sort of modern, sort of vintage, sometimes dark, but very very detailed. If it's not happy time family stuff, or monumental wedding moment stuff, it's probably out in some alley way and it probably involves mimes, pythons, and corsets. A few times, it's involved machine guns. But they weren't loaded or anything.
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I also ride my very cool bike all over Beaumont—and I do mean very cool. It's covered in yellow and orange hippie daisies and it has lime green rims. I love going for rides to the store or to bring back sunflowers in the wicker baskets I've decked it out with. I also love to read and write, but the photos have me very busy these days and I have little time to write anymore. This is fine. A person on the internet who enjoys seeing my pictures on Flickr wrote to me and said “Jessie, you know how certain authors have a voice? I can always hear your 'voice' in your pictures. Like, your style, or what have you. I could pick your photos out of a line up."
Hearing that warms my cockles. Very, very much.
