Fashion photographer Jenny Risher got a crazy idea. Supermodel and friend Veronica Webb encouraged her. Jenny wanted to do a book on Detroit icons. Three years later, Heart Soul Detroit: Conversations on the Motor City debuted. The book includes stunning photos of 50 celebrities including Al Kaline, Tommy Hearns, Smokey Robinson, Berry Gordy and Martha Reeves. The cover features a hooded, kneeling Eminem.

Jenny graduated from CCS (the College for Creative Studies) in Detroit in 1997, as did husband Courtney, who assisted in this continent hopping adventure.  Jenny took the photos, conducted the interviews and funded the expenses.

Recently, Jenny spoke about the book to an enthusiastic crowd at the Crooked Tree Arts Center in Petoskey, MI.  The event was part of a summer-long Detroit  artists program.  Many of Jenny’s photos now on display at Crooked Tree are autographed by their subjects.

If you’re headed to northern Michigan this summer, don’t miss the exhibit.

Jenny, who shoots for Hour Detroit, told stories of her experiences.  She talked about loosening up Lee Iacocca by letting him pose with his dog Ginger. About the thrill of meeting Iggy Pop, the desire for which motivated her to do the book. About the cloud of smoke in her portrait of White Panther Party founder John Sinclair (twice jailed for possessing pot). It came from a cigarette; marijuana smoke wasn’t thick enough.  She said it took 3 years to pin down a date from Eminem.  She shot amid his entourage of 10, including security.

Meeting these legends, Jenny was “pretty intimidated at first.  Bill Bonds gave me my best advice.  He told me: ‘Remember, these people want to be interviewed. That’s why they’re there.'”

I was intrigued by Jenny’s response to Dr. Jack Kevorkian. “After about a year and a half, I couldn’t track him down. I let it go. In early March, 2010, I started feeling anxious. I had to get to him. I approached a gallery showing his work in Royal Oak. He didn’t want to see me. He finally agreed, but only in his lawyer, Geoffrey Fieger’s, office. He turned out to be a little quirky, but a lovely man. As an artist, I was inspired by how he stood up for something (doctor-assisted suicide) he cared about. He was so passionate he was willing to go to prison. He was 83 when we met. He died a few months later.”

Jenny took the last formal portraits of Dr. Kevorkian. Her photos were used for his obituary.

Jenny also shot Elmore Leonard’s last formal portraits. The famous author died a week after attending Jenny’s book launch.

“Meeting these people, some in their 80s, made me think about my own life. And how life is so precious. And how important it is to follow your own own creative path, no matter how challenging.”

A lesson for all of us.

(Please send me your stories about people or events that inspired you.)