Patsy, Vance, Motorcycle

Photographing Patricia Cornwell before she became the world’s most famous crime novelist

The glassine sleeve reads “Patsy, Vance, Motorcycle” in my handwriting from nearly fifty years ago. Inside are black & white frames from an afternoon that seemed insignificant at the time—two Davidson students staging an “Easy Rider” tribute in a cramped, cluttered garage in Davidson, North Carolina. But captured there was a moment before Patricia Cornwell became one of the world’s most famous crime novelists.

Patricia Cornwell and Vance Polley pose for the Davidson College senior picture in 1978.

I photographed Patsy Daniels before she married her college English professor and became Patricia Cornwell. Her latest book, “Sharp Force” just hit the shelves last fall. She painstakingly researches every detail—learning to fly helicopters, obtaining her pilot’s license. Even in that garage, I could see that intensity in how she studied the camera.

Almost all Davidson College seniors have a custom photo taken for their portrait in the Quips & Cranks yearbook. Some are simple and scholarly, students surrounded by massive stacks of books, an alignment of knowledge by association, others are downright strange, and others irreverent, bordering on political incorrectness. The creativity was endless, and I loved being part of it.

Photo of the original contact sheet from almost 50 years ago. I shot this with a Nikkormat and Kodak Tri-X black & white film.

Patsy and her good friend Vance Polley reached out to ask if I would take their senior portrait. “We’re thinking of Easy Rider,” Vance said when they found me in the library one afternoon, both of them excited. “Can you make it work?” They would be wearing leather jackets, sitting on Vance’s motorcycle. I agreed to bring lights and a background, and set up a temporary studio in a messy dungeon of a garage. Quickly unloading my gear, I set up the lighting, the garage dim and dusty with the smell of leftover paint and oil, soon to be punctuated by the smell of leather jackets. We laughed, creating fun poses, impressing ourselves by our own creativity, our youthful innocence on full display.

At one point, Patsy slid on to the bike, sitting behind Vance, both exuding unexpected confidence, their leather jackets shining in the soft light. As Patsy connected with the camera, I thought to myself “More rebel, less English major.”

Patricial Cornwell from a 1978 photo shoot at Davidson College.

The photographs accompanying this post are from the shoot, including the selfie of myself and Patsy. Patricia has shared the yearbook image publicly over the years. Who would have thought that “selfies” - a word that didn’t exist yet - would someday create Instagram fortunes?

Davidson College, nestled in the small village of Davidson, North Carolina, about twenty miles north of Charlotte, was a world of its own. Summer was especially interesting, and yet another world apart from the standard September to May college life. The motorcycle shoot that spring was how Patsy and I met, but we became friends during that summer. That summer was when the “rebel” personality of many Davidson students was truly on display. The “summer people” formed a quirky tribe, me included. Patsy was part of that misfit group, a motley mix of humans - intellectual, witty, and restless like the rest of us, performing our day projects, putting books away in the library, or working odd jobs. None of us over twenty-one, all of us trying on adult lives like those leather jackets that Vance and Patsy wore in their photograph—seeing what fit, what felt real. In the evenings, we would coalesce at The Peregrine House, the local bar on Main Street, drinking cold, cheap beer and even cheaper wine, solving the world’s problems every night of the week, sometimes more than once, until the bar finally closed.

By September, everyone scattered. We were ready for the real world, future lawyers, doctors, politicians, professors, one world-famous crime novelist, and at least one photographer.

Here’s a “selfie” - a word that didn’t exist yet - of the author and Patricia Cornwell.

I look at those contact sheets now and see what I couldn’t then. That fierce curiosity in Patricia’s eyes. The way she inhabited the pose, studying how the camera saw her, understanding instinctively what the lens wanted. She was already gathering evidence, learning to look, understanding the power of observation.

The glassine just says “Patsy, Vance, Motorcycle.” But inside is the moment before everything changed, when we were just students testing boundaries, imagining futures we couldn’t yet see.