Photographer Mario Testino shot the covers and much more for the September issues of British and American Vogue this year.  When I had the pleasure of meeting him at a Boston Museum of Fine Arts Fashion Council event a few years ago, he was kind enough to take a picture with me and also give me advice he often dishes out to the models he photographs. How to look your best in pictures. I still do it today. Thank you Mario. Read on and find out for yourself how to look fab in photos.

“Chin up,” he said.

I lifted my chin and then started laughing.

I glanced at the man I was being photographed with and HIS chin was up too.

He told me it was the best way to pose for a picture.

“You’re all set.” The photographer gave me back my small digital camera after taking the picture.

“Oh, can you just take one more?” I begged.

“Just one more for the beautiful woman,” my new friend said and handed the camera back to the photographer…who had his very large, professional camera in his other hand.

Clearly he was NOT pleased he had to play amateur photog for me.

But he did it.

And I laughed even harder.

How could he say no?

He couldn’t.

It was famous fashion photographer Mario Testino posing with me.

We were at the Bravo restaurant upstairs at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. It was our last Fashion Council event for the season and Mario Testino was our guest.

For the first hour we were treated to an interview between the museum’s director, Malcolm Rogers and Mario Testino. inside the Remis Auditorium.

Then we got to ask questions.

I was the first one to raise my hand. (are you really surprised?!)

Since I read both the British and the American versions of Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and Elle, I told him I was taken aback at first because I would see nudity in the British mags, but never in the American versions. I wasn’t used to it at first. Now it doesn’t bother me, but I wondered how he tailored his shoots for each magazine.

He began his answer with, “Well…let me give you my phone number….”

I countered with, “…and I’ll give you my business card…” The audience laughed and then he told me his shots for an American magazine are far different from British magazines. He has more creative “freedom”… meaning if he wants the model topless, no problem. But if it was for an American fashion magazine? Less skin, more clothes.

And I can certainly see how he’d make a model comfortable enough to expose that much.

His charisma is enthralling and quite mesmerizing.

He joked about how he had no idea what he wanted to do with his life, but he never set out to be a photographer.

When he was at home in Lima, Peru he went to school for economics and math. He hated it and quit.

Then he went to school for law, thinking he could be an ambassador for his country. Nope. That didn’t work out. Hated it and quit.

So he went to Paris and entered photography school. Didn’t love it, but he needed a visa to stay in France.

He quit that too.

But then he went to work as an apprentice for a woman he met in class. Testino loved the work of photographers Richard Avedon and Irving Penn.

So he took pictures and sold them.

Who knew his career would take him all over the world, photographing everyone who’s anyone. Including one of his closest friends, Kate Moss.

He told us a great story about Moss.

When she was just starting as a model, he was at the fashion show she had just walked in. She was crying backstage. So he went up to her and tried to calm her down. He had no idea why this beautiful girl would be so upset after such a successful show.

She told him the designer hated her. She knew it because she didn’t get enough tickets so her whole family could see her.

Testino told her that was normal for a new model.

Then he said. “You can put on a little bit of perfume and it lasts. You can splash on as much cologne as you want, but it fades. You are a perfume. And you will last.”

She was just 14.

They’ve been friends ever since.

Another fabulous story?

Princess Diana.

On the day he was to photograph her for Vanity Fair they had to do it in the afternoon.

She was feeding the poor in the morning.

She made him feel very humble and it’s the reason he now makes time for certain charities.

But that shoot is famous for something else.

It’s the last time she sat down with a professional photographer.

Not long after she would be dead. Killed in that infamous Paris car accident.

He took the last photos of her. And she insisted the clothes she wore be auctioned off for charity.

Just listening to that story gave me the chills.

Testino also told us how he likes to take group photos, although many photographers shy away from it. He likes to create reality, a reaction.

Well, reality for me was…I got to meet the man who shot the May 2010 cover of Vogue with Sarah Jessica Parker. I cut out all of the photos of Parker and hung them on the wall in my dressing room.

As for my reaction?

I adored the man.

I wish I had more time to ask questions, but he was a man very much in demand at the VIP party.

But I got to meet him, get a photo with him. And I scored a few compliments too.

Not bad.

And now when I see a picture of him in British Harper’s Bazaar at a party or an event I can have a little laugh…. because in the photograph his chin will always be up.