christine gacharna | a Northern Virginia photo B L o G » maternity, newborn, baby, children + family

Today, the Summer 2009 issue of The Key fell through the mail drop and this was on the cover:

This is the first time an editor has used me for both the cover photos and the cover feature story! That’s my daughter in the picture, my son holding an SB 800 Strobist-style to camera left.

On the back cover (below) is Quinn (originally posted here.)  All of my clients around the time I was writing this story were photographed as potential cover candidates, but I knew Quinn was a likely winner with those big blue eyes and a shirt to match.

I didn’t realize until recently how much I miss my days as a writer. (Well, the writing part, anyhow. And the reading part; working for newspapers is the only job where you can be caught at your desk reading the paper and not get fired. And of course the off-beat social life. And the smell of ink. And the Glass House notes. And the sports desk that spoke its own language, the photo desk that could come back with a single image that said way more than all the writers and copy editors in the room combined, the art desk that lived in its own cult back there in the corner, the editorial desk that got the phones ringing and all that mail… But the 4 a.m. showtime to write for an 11 a.m. deadline, editors throwing things at me, basement quarters devoid of windows and plant life, that :ick: couch and again, the Glass House notes? Not so much.)

I could spend a whole post writing about the wonderful organization that is RIF — but that would be sort of redundant since I’ve already written a feature and a sidebar and I’m linking you to both.

So I guess the cat’s out of the bag: it’s true. I’m a writer masquerading as a photographer. But today is special because for the Summer 2009 issue, I get to be both.

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