Its been 11 years this coming weekend that I first had the privilege of getting to know Donna Bennett, the former district attorney for Henderson County. We both worked at the same food booth on the courthouse square during the Uncle Fletch’s Hamburger Cook-off here in Athens (she was a volunteer, I was *volunteered* by my then boss on the day after my high school graduation if I wanted to keep my job. Did so great the year before so he decided to deny my request off to attend a wedding!).
Years went by, ran into her occasionally at the grocery store (both the one I worked at and it’s competitor). Then in the fall of 2006, I returned to school for a few extra classes after I graduated from grad school to find her sitting in my comparative politics class with the same goal for returning to college — the next semester we had Latin American Politics together.
Just after our last class together, I started my photography business. Donna’s followed its growth, periodically commenting via email. Then at the beginning of March, she emailed me about photographing her for her official portrait for the DA’s office (she left office at the end of 2008 after losing her bid for re-election; she now is an instructor at Trinity Valley Community College). We met up in mid March — my shortest session ever! — for her portraits. I saved her blog sneak peek so the official images would be on display before the rest of the world saw them …
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This one is my favorite … as the first female District Attorney for Henderson County, I felt she needed something completely different than the blah blue and white backdrops all the male DA’s have had over the years …
This, however, is the one on display at the DA’s office …
Sidenote: In case anyone is wondering why Donna’s commercial session has a different set of watermarks from Lydia’s commercial session, its because I wasn’t paying attention and used the portraiture side (ROLP) watermark for Lydia’s images! The *new & improved* 5 foot 4 Productions website should hopefully be ready to debut pretty soon — its been months in the works but constantly sidelined for ROLP tweaks as well as behind the scenes work for a major announcement next week.
Sidenote: As of June 1, 2009, Reflections of Life Photography was renamed Christina McCall Photography. We apologize for any confusion this may cause.