I Judged a Book by Its Cover. Sue Me.

We’ve all heard the saying, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.”

Well, I did. And I regret nothing.

A while back, Reese posted in a local Facebook group looking to connect with photographers and other creatives. I checked out her work, followed her on Instagram, and we exchanged a few pleasantries. I told her I’d love to work together sometime, but I had imposed a strict rule on myself: no more photoshoots until I finished editing the mountain of photos I’d already taken.

I was going to be responsible. An adult, even.

Unfortunately, Reese had other plans. Not that she knew it.

As I slowly worked my way through my editing backlog, her Instagram posts kept appearing in my feed. And every time, I found myself a little more intrigued.

In one post, she’d be looking like she belonged on the cover of a fashion magazine. In another, she’d be making ridiculous faces or pretending to have explosive diarrhea on the ground. She could go from serious to sexy to being an absolute goofball in the span of three photographs.

Who the hell is this person? Her creativity, humor, and apparent willingness to make a complete fool of herself were a siren song. I had a feeling we’d get along swimmingly.

Eventually, I got almost caught up on my editing. That’s close enough, right? I reached out, we started throwing around ideas, and before long we had a photoshoot on the calendar.

The original plan was to take advantage of some rainy weather. As anyone who has ever tried to schedule a photoshoot around the weather knows, Mother Nature is an exceptionally unreliable collaborator.

We made some adjustments, found ourselves a few interesting locations, and ultimately got the rain and dramatic skies we’d been hoping for.

And Reese? Well, she was everything I’d hoped she’d be.

What struck me most was how naturally she moved between completely different moods. One moment we were laughing at something ridiculous, and the next she was delivering a wonderfully dramatic expression or finding an interesting way to work with the environment. She brought her own instincts and ideas to the shoot, and we had a fantastic time experimenting together.

We even worked in a little fantasy about her being whisked away from the Midwest. Reese has some rather unflattering opinions about Indiana (don’t we all?), so I figured that if I couldn’t help her escape in real life, the least I could do was make it happen in a photograph.

By the time I sat down to edit, I had created an entirely new problem for myself. I generally try to narrow a photoshoot down to around 50 or 60 photographs, but I just kept finding images I wanted to keep. And then a few more. And then a few more.

Apparently, my punishment for breaking my editing rule was even more editing.

But that’s a problem I’m very happy to have.

There’s an interesting thing about photography. You can learn quite a bit about someone by looking at their pictures, but there’s always more to a person than what you see. A photograph might capture an expression, a mood, or a fleeting moment, but it can never tell you the whole story.

Getting to know Reese has only made me appreciate that distinction more. Behind the wonderful photographs is someone thoughtful, imaginative, funny, and considerably more interesting than even her Instagram profile suggested.

So perhaps the old saying deserves a little revision.

Don’t judge a book entirely by its cover. But when the cover is this damned interesting, there’s a pretty good chance the story is worth reading.

In front of the lens · Reese on Instagram ↗