Tim Haverluck

I started over 20 years ago in the marketing industry handling everything from logos to large ad campaigns. Back in early 2019, I hired a photographer to shoot a magazine ad for a high-end furniture company. Everything was scheduled for the photoshoot but when that day came, the photographer did not show. I thought to myself, I took photography back in high school, how hard could it be? So, I grabbed my department store digital camera and took the pictures myself. The images turned out awful. 

Not willing to admit defeat, I decided to go back to college and study photography for the next two years. While in school, we were required to take a portrait class. This was not a high priority for me because I lived in the marketing and advertising world. I was hyper-focused on advertising and product photography but that was not going to stop my competitive nature of striving to be my very best. 

My wife had found a group on a social media site that was looking for photographers and models. I instantly looked at her and said, “Let’s do it.”. She sat there looking at me like I had lost my mind. She said, “I am not a model.”. But I was quick to respond and explained my plot. “Listen, you go in and tell them that you are just getting into modeling and they can teach you how to pose. Then you can report back to me everything that you learned. I will be working with the real models and I can ask them how they like to work with other photographers, it’s a win-win.” 

We went and it turned out to be more of a hobbyist group and quickly felt a bit of a creepy vibe. So, we left early but as we were leaving we noticed one of the “models” leaving too. She had felt the same way that we did. She and my wife started talking and it turns out that she had been a victim of domestic violence. She told us that a year earlier, her husband had held her and her two children hostage for three days at gunpoint. In the end, he took his own life in front of them. Her whole reason for coming to this photoshoot was to put her past in the past and to find a way to feel better about herself.

We were devastated by the story and that is when my wife decided that it would be a good idea to volunteer my services. Inside, I was freaking out. I was not a portrait photographer and surely didn’t want my first time doing it to be a scenario like this one. I mean, this was a situation where if things went poorly, there could be serious consequences. So, I rented a studio and created an entire photoshoot dedicated to her.

As we were going through the photoshoot, somewhere around the third or fourth outfit, I showed her the image on the back of my camera just like I had been doing throughout the shoot. That is when she began to cry, big tears. I thought to myself, oh God, I have just made this woman feel horrible about herself. It was my worst nightmare coming true, right before my eyes. All I wanted to do was to make it better. I needed to fix this but I didn’t know what to fix. So, I asked her what was wrong. She looked at me with a beautiful smile as she wiped the tears from her rosy cheeks and said, “I am not supposed to look that beautiful.”. 

I knew at that very moment that while I may have made her feel beautiful, she had just changed my life. From that day forward, all I would ever want to do would be to share that feeling with every person who would ever sit in front of my lens. I have been taking portraits ever since.