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Felicia Feaster Speaks with Sheila Pree Bright – Download.

Even as a 5-year-old living with her family in Heilbronn, Germany, the more introverted Sheila Pree Bright was, the stronger the reaction she’d receive from others.

One day, Denise, her energetic older sister, grew tired of Sheila burying her nose in the books their Army father had provided her. She wanted Sheila to come out to play.

So Denise heated a knitting needle over the stove and, in a childish fit, poked her with it.

“She doesn’t like a lot of attention,” Kisha, their younger sister, says of Sheila, “but she’s always gotten it.”

Years later, as a 40-year-old photographer whose growing talent has increased her public exposure, Bright is still very, very private. “‘Oh, you’re just so pretty, you’re this, you’re that.’” It’s a refrain she says she heard often in childhood. Irritation creeps into her voice. “And I always felt uncomfortable with that.”

Read full feature here.

For an audio slide-show, click here

Podcast and slide-show produced by Edward Adams. Photo by Joeff Davis