When I was little, my mom went to cosmetology school, and when she graduated, she set up a chair and opened a little salon in our home near Santa Cruz. So the idea of beauty and the project of making people look pretty—women coming and going, curlers and perms and blowouts—these were everyday facts of life in the house where I grew up. One day in 1976, my mom had been lying out in the sun all day, and she came inside and said, “Take a picture of my tan.” She handed me her little square Kodak point-and-shoot camera. It was the first time I’d ever held a camera. I remember the feel of it, the excitement of peering through the viewfinder, having a framework to organize what I saw in a way that would last.
My family didn’t have much money, and film was expensive, so in that moment, taking my first picture, I felt pressure to get it right the first time. Looking through the camera, I concentrated on her bright yellow shorts and red blouse and golden hair and her deep tan. I thought she was so pretty; she was like Farrah Fawcett to me. I wanted the picture to look as beautiful as she looked to me. And then I pressed the shutter…
Recently, my Mom started having trouble with her eyes, which has been very difficult for her, since beauty has been such an important part of her life. When her sight began to fade, she dug out that first photograph I took of her—which she loved—she loved the way her smile looked—and she gave me the picture. Now I keep it on my desk in a frame. I like to look at it and remember, This is my first photograph. This is the moment when it all started.
Of the thousands of negatives and prints that I have made over the years for the magazines and designers that I have admired since I was boy, this image is my favorite. It depicts one of the most important people in my life, and it also captures the moment
when I first made two discoveries that still fuel my work. To see beauty is also to create it; and glamour’s enchantment is not just handed down from designers and editors, but is also fed by unexpected sources—like a perfect tan, shown off in a quiet back yard on a summer afternoon.