I notice the thing on your collar before you do.

That's either my best professional quality or a character flaw.

I photograph people in Raleigh and across the Triangle. Headshots, executive and team portraits, branding sessions, campaign work. Most of my clients come back, and most of the new ones arrive because somebody they trust sent them.

I didn't start on this side of the lens. I modeled for a couple years first, which is where I learned exactly how it feels to be told to relax by a person holding a camera. Then I spent years in North Carolina politics, where I learned that the difference between a good photograph and a useless one is usually about ninety seconds of paying attention to somebody before you raise the camera.

In a session with me, we will laugh more than once. I'll catch the flipped-up tag, the crooked tie, the necklace clasp that's wandered around to the front. Then a gallery arrives in your inbox and the only hard part is narrowing it down. My favorite part is watching clients realize they photograph better than they thought.

One more thing about me: I wrote a book!

A few years ago my sister gave everybody in the family Ancestry DNA kits for Christmas. Mine came back with a close match two hours away, and that is a whole story of its own.

Match Found is my first novel. It's about Charlie, who is ten, adopted, and biracial in a white family. She has never once doubted that they love her, and she still doesn't know whose hair she has. When a DNA test turns up a match in Charlotte, she gets on a bus to find out.

You can read the entire first chapter at matchfound.paulettehill.com.