A Day Of Photographing Beauty

I photographed two events that were at total opposite ends of the spectrum this past Saturday. I began my day in Macon at the Douglass Theater covering a bodybuilding event. My friend Terri Hancock’s daughter Tracy was competing in the event and I decided I could get a good story and photos from the event. Four ladies from a local gym were competing.

Mary Ellen Mulley, in the lower photo, was one of those competitors in the 2009 INBF Southern Natural Bodybuilding and Figure Championships. She began bodybuilding and competing back in 1988, was winning events quite regularly when she decided to stop competing to raise her family. Now the last kid is in college, so she hit the gym in 2005 and has resumed her winning ways. Cool story.

Saturday afternoon I went to Mrs. Marie Anderson’s 90th birthday party. Another beautiful lady to photograph. That is Mrs. Marie in the top photo. Doesn’t look 90, does she? Her birthday was the previous Wednesday, and when I asked she replied, “You can’t have a party on Wednesday, you have to have a party on Saturday.”
A great lady. She and her late husband were both educators.

We fast forward , our paper was delivered yesterday. Lots of folks commented on the bodybuilder photos on the sports page. One lady called up, really upset about those “naked ladies” in the paper. Sorry ma’am. Hope you get over it. Those women put lots of hard work into preparing for their competition. They deserve some exposure…pardon the pun.

No one has said anything about Mrs. Marie yet. But Mrs. Marie came by the office to see me today. Wanted to thank me for coming to her party and putting her in the paper.
We talked for quite a while. She told Nathan Mathis and me about her life here in Fort Valley as a new bride. How blessed she was to have been in love with the most wonderful man in the world. She expressed her ability to be happy, and how some folks never figured out how to be happy.

As our conversation ended, she thanked me again for coming to her party. Thank you, Mrs. Marie, meeting you was the highlight of my Saturday.