Harris is used to shooting American icons in pho-tographs.
In New York he shot John F. Kennedy Jr.’s
first formal portraits since he was a child in the
White House. He’s also taken photographs of
US Presidents, including Clinton and Carter, and
a host of American luminaries. Then when he moved
to Wilmington 17 years ago, he continued his work,
as a set photographer for Hollywood films and TV
shows shot here, and as an industrial photographer
for major corporations like GE and Raytheon.
Hearts Apart is his way of giving back. “What I
personally like is the direct good feeling from the
families, that you know you’re giving them something
special. And it means so much to all of us,” he says.
Like Jennifer, the Army wife who blew up Harris’s
photos of her husband into life-sized images and placed
them in her children’s bedrooms after her husband
Dave was deployed. After her family’s photo session,
Jennifer was overwhelmed by its effect on her family.
“Having such amazing photographs of Dave
allows our children to go to bed and wake up each
day seeing their daddy’s smile,” she wrote in an email.
“A simple thank you seems to barely scratch the
surface on how this experience touched our lives.”
Hearts Apart is having an even deeper impact
with its photographs of newborns for the deployed
father who can’t experience the birth. One of the
first newborn shoots Harris did was for a mother
who gave birth on a Friday and came in to be
photographed on a Monday.
“Shooting a three-day-old baby was something
in itself,” Harris says. But then, while shooting, the
wife Skyped her husband in Afghanistan, who hadn’t
seen the baby yet or any photos.
“I held up my LCD viewfinder to the Skype
camera so he could see his baby girl,” says Harris.
“Then I looked at the Skype screen and he was
crying.”
Connecting soldiers and their families is “why
Hearts Apart is so important,” Harris says. “It’s
something so simple.”
Back in the studio, Harris was on a roll. At the
five-hour mark, the shoot had already gone longer
than any other he had done. Harris captured poses
of the soldier in full camouflage, the family in
University of Texas outfits, and the wife with a rifle
with her back to her husband in full gear, in a
James Bond pose.
The gear reminded Harris that he once came
close to going to war himself. In college at the
height of the Vietnam War, he was registered
for the draft.
“It was a very scary time,” he says.
He participated in his share of anti-war protests
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WBM july 2013