THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, November 4, 1994 TAG: 9411030160
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JO-ANN CLEGG, CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: Medium: 78 lines
M IKE LINETT'S family moved to Portsmouth from New York when he was a kid.
Marian Stephenson grew up the daughter of a peanut farmer in Whaleyville.
Eventually they met on a blind date and married.
``He taught me matzoh balls,'' Marian said. Mike quickly added, ``She taught me barbecue.''
It's a typical beginning for a conversation with a pair of photographers who operate the firm called Custom Photography Ltd. out of their home off Potters Road.
The one-liners just keep coming.
``If you can live together, love together, fight together and work together without comment.
They may take themselves with a grain of salt, but one thing they do take seriously is their work.
And it shows.
Their studio is filled with about an equal number of work samples and ribbons, awards and certificates.
Their stock in trade is wedding photography and their photos are impressive. Softly lit formal portraits of brides and the traditional ``aaah'' shots of rings being exchanged, kisses given and received and flower girls daintily strewing petals. They vie for space with candids of dads wiping tears from their eyes and bridesmaids trying frantically to get unwieldy satin trains going in the right direction.
Those are the expected shots.
What sets the Linetts apart from other wedding photographers are the unexpected ones.
Like the picture of Grandma leading the pack in the limbo contest or the one that Marian Linett captured when a trio of tuxedoed ushers unexpectedly took to the air for a synchronized swan dive into the algae covered pool of a now-closed hotel.
It was one of many for which Linett has won awards from such groups as Wedding Photographers International, Professional Photographers of America and state professional photographers organizations in New Jersey and North Carolina as well as in Virginia.
Of all the plaques, certificates and ribbons in their studio, Marian Linett is proudest of the piece of paper that says that she's been certified as a professional photographer through the Professional Photographers of America. In doing so, she became one of five females in Virginia and the only woman in Hampton Roads to receive the certification, she said.
It's a distinction for which she works hard. In addition to demonstrating her ability to take pictures, she had to learn the technical side of photography as well.
``I owe the photography teacher at First Colonial High School the rest of my life,'' she said. It was that teacher, A.P. ``Tony'' Robino, who coached her in the finer points of the physics and chemistry involved in the process that records the exact moment at which the ``I dos'' are said, the wedding cake is cut and the littlest flower girl falls asleep in her mother's lap.
Both of the Linetts came late to the career of professional photography. Mike started taking wedding pictures as a part time business in 1984. Marian, who had worked in the credit department of the Smith-Douglass Fertilizer Co., figured if he could go out and have fun taking pictures on the weekends, so could she.
She picked up the camera, started taking pictures and never looked back. The business has grown to the point where it supports both Linetts, a full-time studio assistant and several part-timers.
And there may be another generation of Linetts to follow in the business. Sons Jeffrey, 15, and Jason, 12, are both already accomplished photographers. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by JO-ANN CLEGG
Marian Linett and her husband, Mike, have turned Custom Photography
Ltd. into an award-winning business in a relatively short period of
time.
by CNB