# 5 - Jessica Luscombe - March 25, 2017 - Shepherdstown, West Virginia
Saturday, March 25, 2017
I first met Jessica Luscombe last October on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Path near Shepherdstown, West Virginia. I was doing an overnight bike trip and had set up under a railroad bridge for break and snack along the path. I started to make a self-portrait - a "selfie" as they are called now, during the moment Jessica and her son Dylan were walking by. Jessica offered to use my camera to make a photograph for me. I obliged. The photo she made turned out really well (See here). I made the comment "it helps to have a person actually make your photo - instead of trying to do it yourself". Little did I know, but Jessica is a photographer also. We shared Instagram accounts and have been in touch since then through Instagram. She has an impressive following on Instagram with an impressive amount of interaction with people on the site. See her Instagram account.
Jessica studied photography at the International Center of Photography School in New York City and at the Maine Photographic Workshops in Rockport, Maine.
One day Jessica posted an image on Instagram of a scar on her neck - revealing that she had a few years prior had surgery for thyroid cancer. I found that fascinating as just this past year I too discovered I had thyroid cancer and had to have my thyroid removed during a seven-hour surgery in late July that also involved removing 68 lymph nodes in my neck. I also underwent radioactive iodine treatment to "zap" any remaining cancer in my body. I've recovered quickly and just recently got a very good report from my doctor that I'm very likely cancer-free at this point. Luckily none of my cancer had spread beyond the lymph nodes in my neck and upper chest. The type of cancer I had (papillary thyroid carcinoma) tends to not spread rapidly and has a very high prognosis of survivability and is typically cured during surgery and subsequent radioactive iodine treatment. So we both have surviving cancer in common.
For this shoot we revisited the area where I first met Jessica - we photographed on the C&O Canal path about 175 yards from where we first met. I photographed her with her two sons - Dylan - age 12, and Greysen - age 4. I stuck to the ten-minute rule with the shoot - I lost count of the frames I was shooting and ran out of exposures at about the nine-minute mark. The shoot seemed to go really fast and I felt like ten frames weren't enough. I love the quality that shooting medium format film can produce.. but I feel like digital would have been better for this situation. Photographing young children involves capturing a lot of spontaneity which can last for only a fleeting moment. The medium format camera is typically not designed for speed like a DSLR.
Jessica studied photography at the International Center of Photography School in New York City and at the Maine Photographic Workshops in Rockport, Maine.
One day Jessica posted an image on Instagram of a scar on her neck - revealing that she had a few years prior had surgery for thyroid cancer. I found that fascinating as just this past year I too discovered I had thyroid cancer and had to have my thyroid removed during a seven-hour surgery in late July that also involved removing 68 lymph nodes in my neck. I also underwent radioactive iodine treatment to "zap" any remaining cancer in my body. I've recovered quickly and just recently got a very good report from my doctor that I'm very likely cancer-free at this point. Luckily none of my cancer had spread beyond the lymph nodes in my neck and upper chest. The type of cancer I had (papillary thyroid carcinoma) tends to not spread rapidly and has a very high prognosis of survivability and is typically cured during surgery and subsequent radioactive iodine treatment. So we both have surviving cancer in common.
For this shoot we revisited the area where I first met Jessica - we photographed on the C&O Canal path about 175 yards from where we first met. I photographed her with her two sons - Dylan - age 12, and Greysen - age 4. I stuck to the ten-minute rule with the shoot - I lost count of the frames I was shooting and ran out of exposures at about the nine-minute mark. The shoot seemed to go really fast and I felt like ten frames weren't enough. I love the quality that shooting medium format film can produce.. but I feel like digital would have been better for this situation. Photographing young children involves capturing a lot of spontaneity which can last for only a fleeting moment. The medium format camera is typically not designed for speed like a DSLR.
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