Photo by Collin Ritchie
Hometown: Hartford, Connecticut, but moved around a lot
Age: 68
Family: Single
Profession: Owner, Marie Constantin Photography
Years with company: 29
It could be that Marie Constantin’s photographer’s eye came from her father, a peripatetic electrical engineer who moved his wife and four children constantly throughout Constantin’s childhood. “He craved seeing something that he’d never seen before,” says Constantin. “He loved nature and the visual, but it was seeing new things that drove him.”
Constantin’s childhood stretched across New England, New York, the Midwest, the Southeast and California. Her parents were partial to rural areas where she and her three siblings spent their days exploring without rules and schedules. School was difficult for Constantin. “I flunked the fifth grade,” she says. “I was the kid who was not supposed to succeed.”
But succeed she has. Constantin is an accomplished portrait photographer, documentarian of international poverty and hand-picked photographer of the late Mother Teresa of Calcutta. It was one of Constantin’s portraits that was chosen for Mother Teresa’s beatification ceremony at the Vatican in 2003. The portrait, which depicts the beloved nun smiling broadly, was unveiled in front of a crowd of 300,000 in St. Peter’s Square.
“I don’t know how you prepare for a moment like that,” says Constantin. “I never expected something like that to happen. It was just so serendipitous, like so many things in my life.”
Constantin moved to Louisiana at age 27 after marrying a native of the state. The couple later divorced, but Constantin remained. “I never wanted to move again, and I just fell in love with Louisiana,” she says. “It has this incredible natural beauty, sense of freedom and joie de vivre.”
She was working at the LSU Catholic Student Center and contributing stories to the LSU Catholic when she discovered a knack for photography. Later, she landed jobs at the Clinton Watchman and in the archives of The Advocate, but in 1989, Constantin quit her job and went out on her own, building a successful business as a still photographer and a photojournalist. Constantin’s work has appeared in Business Report for more than three decades. In 2017, she was inducted into the LSU Manship School of Mass Communication Hall of Fame.
Years ago, after a long day at work, Constantin turned on the television and saw images of children in poverty. She immediately headed out the door for the Missionaries of Charity soup kitchen at St. Agnes Catholic Church and asked to help. It was a life-changing decision. She got to know the sisters, traveled with them to Haiti to serve the poor and later accompanied them to India, where she met the order’s founder, Mother Teresa.
Constantin was asked to document Mother Teresa’s travels throughout the United States, an arrangement that lasted 13 years. Some of the images from that period are part of a traveling exhibit, as well as Constantin’s 2016 memoir, Finding Calcutta.
“I’ve never really worried about success,” Constantin says. “I just try do the best I can with what’s in front of me. Mother Teresa said, ‘If you peel potatoes, peel them beautifully.’”
Milestones
1977: Moves to Louisiana
1982: Owns a camera for the first time
1989: Starts a photography business
2003: Her photograph of Mother Teresa of Calcutta is unveiled at Beatification Ceremony in Vatican before crowd of 300,000
2016: Publishes book, Finding Calcutta, Memoirs of a Photographer
2017: Inducted into the LSU Manship School of Mass Communication Hall of Fame
Q&A
Proudest achievement
When my alma mater, the LSU Manship School, honored me by making me a Hall of Fame inductee, and my niece Wendy and close friends were able to attend. That was my proudest career milestone because I struggled so much to be a good student, even failing the fifth grade.
Who inspires you
I admire the courage of women religious (Catholic nuns) who do their work without a lot of fine wine, tools, publicity or support.
Best advice
Mother Teresa grabbed my hand one time and pinching each finger she said to me, “Five fingers. You did it to me.” (Referring to the part in the Gospel where God is telling us that if you did something to another person, you essentially did it to God.) This does not mean we have to be wimpy in the face of bad behavior, but we need to remember to be compassionate and advocate for others who maybe can’t advocate for themselves.
Meet the other 9 members of this year’s Influential Women in Business class
