“Instead of world history, now I’m photographing family history,” she says, and it’s a shift that has brought her great joy.
Sommer, who grew up in Hollis, NH, always had a love of photography. She got her first camera, a purple 35mm point and shoot, when she was just 7 years old. “I remember taking objects from around my house and arranging little vignettes,” she says, but it didn’t occur to her that she could make a career of her favorite pastime until high school.
It was at that time that her favorite art teacher, Geoff Drew — who now teaches art (including photography) at Kennebunk High School in Maine — took note of her talent and suggested she pursue it. Sommer took his advice and enrolled in the Newhouse School at Syracuse University where she majored in photojournalism, eventually becoming the photo editor of the daily paper. Her timing was fortuitous — the year she graduated coincided with USA Today’s one time recruiting of college students in order to add “fresh blood” to their staff, and Sommer landed a prestigious photojournalism job right out of college.
While working with USA Today, Sommer had the opportunity to spend time with the Bush and Gore campaigns in 2000, documenting a day in the life of each of the candidates. “I was a very educated voter that year,” she says, and yes, during her day with the Bush campaign, Dubya did give her a nickname. “He called me ‘Sweet Emily.’”
That same year, Sommer also photographed former CIA director George Tenet, hip hop artist Mary J. Blige, and — her favorite assignment — the Miss America pageant. “The focus of my assignment was what happens in the 24 hours after Miss America is crowned,” Sommer says, which involved capturing Angela Perez Baraquio’s winning moment and then accompanying her as she and her entourage were ushered from press conferences and interviews to public appearances over the course of the next day.
In addition to getting a chance to play dress-up for the pageant (Sommer had to wear a ball gown to attend the event), Sommer also enjoyed getting a behind the scenes look at the competition. “It really normalized the whole thing for me,” she says. “All of these women have cellulite — you just can’t see it on TV.” Even the winner, Baraquio, was an average, everyday woman, Sommer says, something those of us who only see the contestants from flattering angles after hours of hair and make-up might never guess.
After her experience at USA Today, Sommer, who was living in Washington D.C., spent some time working with the Washington Post. She was in D.C. at the time of the 9/11 attacks, and had to cover the aftermath at the Pentagon. The following year, she had a front row seat during the sniper attacks that plagued the greater Washington Metropolitan area and parts of Maryland and Virginia for 23 days.
At that time, she had already been longing for the tranquility of her hometown in NH and considering switching the focus of her photography. After photographing her cousin’s wedding in Ogunquit in 2001 — something she did as a gift for the couple — Sommer discovered how much she enjoyed wedding photography. “It’s wonderful because people want you there,” she says. “It’s not like attending a press conference where you’re constantly being told to back up or having to elbow for position.”
In 2003, she started her current business, Emilie Inc. (www.emilieinc.com), in Washington D.C., and began shooting weddings on a regular basis, all the while thinking about moving back to New England. In 2004, while visiting a friend in Portland, she fell in love with the area and moved up a few months later. She was eventually joined by her fiance, who’d been living in California, and the pair — both photographers — now reside in South Portland. Since last May, Sommer has been working out of her Portland studio which is on Congress Street, just above the North Star Café.
While she still takes editorial assignments, Sommer’s main focus now is on weddings, but due to her background in photojournalism, she tends to bring a unique perspective to the process. Instead of coming to an event with a checklist of images to be captured, she tries to capture the truth of the people involved as well as the passion, emotion and beauty inherent in the day.
“I photograph weddings every weekend, but every wedding is different,” she says. “There are always different stories, different things to be captured.”
— Belinda Ray