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Cpl. Donnie Anderson gets a welcome-home kiss from his wife Stacy Anderson
in this winning picture.
CA photo editor wins 'perfect kiss' contest
By Fredric Koeppel
November 11, 2005
Watchers of NBC’s "Today" show this week voted a photograph of a wife
kissing her soldier-husband returning from Iraq the best in the "Search
for the Perfect Kiss" contest. The picture was taken by The Commercial
Appeal’s photo editor Michael McMullan.
The image, shot in Sept. 2003, won over three other finalists chosen from
3,000 entries. The contest was launched by Life magazine and co-sponsored
by NBC.
The winning photograph was announced live on Friday’s "Today" show with
the couples and their photographers present. Thirty-thousand votes were
cast.
Stacy and Donnie Anderson of Germantown, the subjects of McMullan’s candid
shot, won a five-day trip to Maui, as did Mcmullan and his wife, Nancy.
Contacted in New York — actually, having a picnic in Central Park with his
wife Nancy — McMullan said, "I thought we had a decent chance, today being
Veterans Day and all. But I was still surprised. I’m really flattered that
the image was chosen."
The contest was inspired by the 60th anniversary of the iconic photograph
taken by Alfred Eisenstaedt of a sailor kissing a nurse in Times Square on
V-J Day, 1945.
McMullan’s photo will appear in Life magazine — which is in the The
Commercial Appeal on Thursdays — but a publication date hasn’t been set.
McMullan snapped the shot when a company of Marines was united with their
families after returning from a tour of duty in Iraq. In the confusion, he
focused on Stacy Anderson, who "looked as if she was about to bust," the
photographer said last week. "I thought she was my best chance to get a
picture that would convey the emotion in the room at the time."
The picture ran in The Commercial Appeal on Sunday, Sept. 28, 2003.
The Andersons had a copy made, and when Stacy saw the plea for entries to
"The Perfect Kiss" contest, she sent it in with a short essay.
"It’s such a great picture that captured the true happiness we were
feeling at that moment," she said.
Obviously, the viewers of the "Today" show agreed.
— Fredric Koeppel: 529-2376
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