Missy McLamb was working as a news photographer in 1995 for Newsday in New York when a woman familiar with her photojournalism work asked her to shoot a wedding—but not in the usual sense. She was to photograph the wedding using the same techniques she’d used as a journalist on assignment, avoiding the posed image in favor of capturing the breathable moments before her.
The idea clicked. Missy always was interested in the stories a picture could tell, in the anthropology of photography—indeed, in the anthropology evident in a single moment captured through a camera’s lens. An almost-native of North Carolina (her family moved to N.C. when she was in grade school) she had received local grants to fund her documentary work of rural, southern communities and the timeless traditions apparent there. But, while all communities differ, Missy realized that one tradition is shared the world over by countries and faiths large and small: making a life with someone else. The story is recurring; but the script is different each time. Each day, Missy has had the pleasure of collectively advancing the pages of history—from the smallest country wedding and the largest of Manhattan nuptials to the birth of life itself.
Since she began her photography studio, Missy has served as an associate photographer for Denis Reggie, who has photographed every Kennedy family wedding since the 1980s and is credited with founding the wedding photojournalism movement. Her work has appeared both locally and nationally in Martha Stewart Weddings and Elegant Bride magazines, and her personal work has been exhibited in a solo show through the Visual Art Exchange Gallery in Raleigh. Missy brings an expert perspective to her work: Selected to attend the prestigious Eddie Adams Workshop in New York, she has worked with photo editors from Time, Life, National Geographic and New York magazines, as well as The New York Times.
Missy's love for storytelling through photographs is enhanced
by her passion for sharing it with others. She has taught photojournalism
courses for both undergraduates and graduates at the University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Journalism and
Mass Communication and has been a black-and-white photography instructor
at the Duke University Craft Center.
Missy holds a degree in journalism from UNC-Chapel Hill, where
she was ranked among the top-10 nationally for photojournalism by
the Hearst Foundation, widely considered the Pulitzer Prize organization
of student journalism. Missy lives in Raleigh with her husband,
Rod, whom she married in 1996 at The Wagoner House in Clayton. Their
daughter, Eliza, was born January 17, 2001.
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