Umbrella Love

Moss, like a rolling stone

2011-08-25T13:24:00.002-05:00

A while back I donated a portrait session to the Johnson Intern Program, the organization for which my mom is Director. It was time for the annual Year End Dinner, and my session was part of a silent auction.

The high bidder asked me to do a portrait of her daughter, Moss, who was college-bound. On the day I photographed her in her grandparents' garden in Creedmor, she was less than 24 hour away from embarking on her journey to Carnegie-Mellon, where she plans to study Dramaturgy.

Moss is simultaneously poised and relaxed, at home with herself and amongst others. In between shots, she would dart inside to prepare dinner for her family. I wish her so much luck — not that she'll need it — in college and beyond.

Off the Screen, Onto the Page!

2011-07-07T14:48:00.007-05:00

It's far too infrequent that I get to see my work not on a back-lit screen, where so much of it winds up for web use, but held in my own hands on the printed page of a magazine or piece of print marketing. I always smile when I see my name in print - actual print - and eventually I tuck it away into my tearsheets file. Here are a few samples of late(-ish), dug out from the files.

First, I've been so excited to take on a few assignments for Our State Magazine over the past year or so. Our State does just beautiful work (much of the best of it produced by my good friend and fellow photographer Lissa Gotwals) and I literally squealed the first time I opened the magazine to one of my prints.

Recently some work I did for a wonderful organization, Builders of Hope, was used in their beautifully designed Annual Report.

I've been doing the photography for the Durham Chamber of Commerce' Business & Relocation Guide for the past two years, but I was particularly excited about this year's cover, taken at the awesome, funky, light-filled offices of McKinney.

Whenever I get the chance to have my photographs used in conjunction with Orangeseed Design, based in Minneapolis, I know I'm in good hands. Here are some print materials from Aurora University:

And the beautiful annual report for Feeding America, a simply incredible hunger relief nonprofit whose work has nationwide impact.

A spread for Feeding America in Newsweek Magazine:

And this one is older now, but I always love the chance to work with the nonprofit Hidden Voices and its talented and compassionate director, Lynden Harris.

It's a privilege to work with the clients that I do. Here's to more work off the screen!

The Clapp-Ferguson House

2011-05-10T17:14:00.005-05:00

I was about to write up a quick post about my morning photographing my neighbors Keith and Adrian's incredible home, but they beat me to it. Check out a few of the photos here, as well as this one (above) of their beautiful staircase.

It really made me want to go back and fix a lot of the mistakes Matt and I made on our humble little home! We love it anyway, but... wow.

How Engaging

2011-05-04T09:22:00.004-05:00

I've had a couple of engagement sessions lately - one for a lovely couple whose wedding I'll be shooting in October, and one for my friends whose wedding, gloriously, I'll be attending as a guest (!) later this month.

First, meet Hillary and Kate.

We pranced around downtown Carrboro together and took advantage of the beautiful day the the many colorful corners of town. Kacy Johnson assisted and we all had a lot of fun.

Definitely looking forward to that wedding!

A couple of weeks ago I spent a Sunday morning with my friends Erik and Meg, whose wedding is a mere couple of weeks away. Their wedding will be in downtown Durham, and they are both very invested in the city's well-being and future. Erik is a transportation planner, so we headed to the train station first.

I was wishing I'd thought to bring an old-fashioned suitcase for this one... I have one that used to belong to my grandparents, and is covered in travel stickers.

A jaunt to Brightleaf to take advantage of the classic ironwork:

Thanks to Mollie for assisting.

It's spring, folks — love is in the air!

Jacob and Rachel

2010-12-08T23:12:00.003-05:00

How beautiful are these children's eyes? I had the pleasure of photographing my massage therapist's children recently (did I mention I love the barter system?) and their gorgeous blue eyes were almost as striking as their sweet, gentle demeanors.

Those crazy wine guys...

2010-05-13T21:30:00.002-05:00

Since this shot for Wine Authorities just came out today in Fifteen-501 and I haven't seen a hard copy yet, I couldn't resist posting it here. The theme, as you may infer, is wine vacations. And Seth and Craig and the crew don't mess around where themes are concerned.

We shot on the side of the interstate and only got interrupted by one road service guy, who sternly instructed us NOT to drive on the road with all those boxes of wine strapped like that on top of the car. Little did he know we would never put good wine at risk like that. Those boxes were empty, friends.

Even though we had the beautiful I-85 to work with, I ended up loving this tighter shot instead.

Wavelengths

2009-12-10T20:55:00.004-05:00

Also in July, I provided the photography for designer Rebekah Meek's redesign of Wavelengths Salon's website. Wavelengths is a Durham institution - the place where I always dreamed of going when I was a pre-teen (when it was still haircuts from mom sitting on the bathroom counter). I had a blast spending the day with the hilarious and wonderful stylists, doing some goofy portraits...

...and some more "serious" ones. Fortunately, that's about as serious as those ladies get.

I also did a few interior shots of their new space - unfortunately, the new stations hadn't come in yet, but we were locked into the date. I've been back since, though, and it looks even more amazing.

Check out Rebekah's final site here.

Backlogged

2009-12-10T18:56:00.006-05:00

Okay, I promised you some photos from some of my shoots over the last, oh, six months. And while I've been equally busy attacking my back pain lately in hopes of being able to continue to shoot for many a month more, I do try to live up to promises.

You may remember the beautiful Kumin family, who I first photographed in Boston a few years ago when Noah was just a newborn, and then several months later with his very flexible mom. I got to take a trip to Boston this past July to meet the newest member of the family - meet Jesse!

Can't wait til next time, guys.

Prints for Sale

2009-11-24T15:11:00.004-05:00

I'm just starting to list some Durham prints on Etsy, to see how that works for me as a vending option. While I don't think of myself as a "fine art photographer", I get asked about my Durham prints enough that I decided to try out Etsy as a venue for selling them.

Happy shopping! I'll be adding more prints soon.

The Doctor's Orders

2009-10-30T18:18:00.000-05:00

Dear Lovely Readers,

I feel so blessed to have been as busy with work as I've been for the past many months - especially in a recession, especially in the field of photography, especially after I almost folded and got a "real" job because things were so slow last winter. I feel like a sprinter who's just finished a race and is struggling to keep her feet underneath her body as she slows down, gasping for breath, who really wants to sit down but knows she can't, not just yet.

For better or worse - or more accurately, a bit of both - I am being forced to slow down, in the form of a several-week break to deal with almost a year of increasingly horrible back pain. A few weeks ago, this was a seriously distressing thought - what kind of freelancer intentionally turns down work, especially when momentum is so good and only getting better? But thanks to York, a photographer friend, I'm now heading down a path that I feel great about, and have turned my back on the prospect of surgery in spite of the medical world's bossy prescription for it. This path of healing is going to be a lot more vague, a bit longer (I think), but I feel confident about it. For my fellow back pain sufferers... look into Tension Myoneural Syndrome (TMS). If you're like me, you'll recognize yourself immediately, and potentially avoid years of suffering.

The silver lining to this time "off" (quotation marks called for because of my longish to-do list of business-related items) is that I plan to get a foot-hold on the blog again, both umbrella love and shake the frame. I look forward to sharing images from some of my gigs and projects over the last several months.

Looking forward, too, to savoring Fall as a consolation prize for sacrificing summer to an insane workload. I mean it, people. Get your jackets and scarves, I expect to be found sitting on a porch or a patio, drinking hot toddies somewhere with you soon.

Feeding America in Ohio and DC

2009-06-22T07:19:00.004-05:00

More faces of food agency recipients across the US - June, 2009.

And We're Up!

2009-05-12T11:15:00.000-05:00

Check out my Durham city guide. Thank you, Grace!

A Photo Love Letter to Durham

2009-05-11T14:21:00.012-05:00

Almost a year ago, right around when Matt and I moved to Durham and began exploring the town that I'd previously only really known up through high school (imagine finally getting your license at 16 when you've grown up on a farm out in the country, and suddenly being able to drive yourself "into town", which for me meant Durham's Ninth Street district, or the Durham Arts Council where I did theater with the Young People's Performance Company), I decided I wanted to write a Durham guide for one of my favorite daily blogs, Design*Sponge.

Durham has oodles of amazing design, I thought, and set out making a long list with a commitment to photograph every single listing as a personal project and editorial challenge.

Well, after putting the project off through a busy fall, and then waiting patiently for the more foliage-heavy spring, my guide will be running tomorrow, and I'm trying not to be too hard on myself for not meeting my goal of accompanying every listing with a photo! When you see its length, you may understand; there is just so much incredible stuff going on here, it would have taken me months to do it all justice. So instead, the guide will be accompanied by my top selections of pictures, with a few outtakes here. I just hope I don't piss anybody off too much when I inevitably leave off a listing that should have made it. I feel like there's still so much to explore.

I should note that my guide doesn't even begin to touch on the fascinating history that makes Durham what it is today, though it's worth exploring. For a start, I recommend Gary Kueber's Endangered Durham, a blog dedicated to the pursuit of creative alternatives to the demolition of historic structures. As he lays out building by building's history, a larger story of Durham begins to unfold.

What a classic Durham juxtaposition: the high-security prison on the left (an idea conceived when nobody ever believed Durham's downtown would ever amount to much ever), and the sparkling new Durham Performing Arts Center, home of big-name musicians and Broadway musicals, on the right.

Here's DPAC at night:

My heart breaks for buildings like this one. Fingers crossed that someday, someone with a little start-up and some entrepreneurial drive take a chance on this place, just a block east of luxury condos. It's gonna happen.

I kind of adore both this shop (Ox & Rabbit) and its owners, Bryan and Erin, who I met while photographing for this project, and whose wedding I'm going to be shooting in August near Asheville! I love what they've done with the old soda fountain from McDonald's Drug Store, which occupied the space for decades.

OMG, their merchandise is just so tantalizing....

Vaguely Reminiscent, which has items for the very young (bins of rubber toys, intriguing painted boxes) and the design inclined (stunning jewelry, shoes, frames, etc.); one usually finds oneself in a ballet of squeezing past other customers in their intimate space to take it all in.

The Regulator Bookshop - which reminds me, I've got Domino's Book of Decorating on hold for me right now! My childhood neighbor, John Valentine, owns and runs this place.

Apparently whenever I'm at Pinhook I'm out of photo mode and just completely, absolutely, enjoying myself... I never seem to remember to take any photos of the inside, as gorgeous as it is. Check out their website to see some for yourself. What did we all do before this bar?

JC's Kitchen (I'll give you one guess as to what JC stands for): "Where the food is annointed and you won't be disappointed!"

The Federal - Saturday afternoon (or anytime, really) staple.

And its neighbor, the James Joyce. My sister, who spent a year in London, swears by their curry fries.

Heather Garrett's fun interior design shop, smack in the middle of downtown's Main Street...

I love this little padded sitting nook behind the table:

Golden Belt offers more and more events every month... I love popping into all their artists' studios on Third Fridays.

Matt at Dain's Place enjoying a cold one:

American Tobacco's man-made river:

A big thanks to Grace Bonney of Design*Sponge - I admire her hard work so much, and am grateful she let me put together Durham's guide! Check back tomorrow for a link!

Up To...

2009-05-01T13:04:00.004-05:00

Lest you worry that the delinquency of my posting is due to lack of photographic activity or having fallen off the earth, I recently decided to revive Umbrella Love not only by picking up posting again, but by giving you an overview of what I've been up to since I left you (yikes) last October. There's something about having my busiest month yet that's given me the energy and the motivation to juggle everything else I've been neglecting, too.

First of all, the horribly rainy and cold spring has finally given way to early summer around here, and the world is unfurling. It's lovely.

(Can you spot the four-leaf clover? It's there.)

A gift from Tyler - fresh radishes from his front yard garden. We have not yet managed to get our butts in gear for our own garden. I fear it may be too late for most veggies.

In addition to the work I've been up to lately (see the deluge of new posts below), I've been working on two "personal" projects - one of documenting people in my neighborhood over time, sitting around on front porches drinking beer and shooting the shit. Most folks know me pretty well by now, and are getting more comfortable with me having my camera with me. It's been fun, and a challenge. Below is my 3-year-old friend Kyle Louis W.

The other thing I'm working on is putting together a city guide for Design*Sponge, my absolutely favorite daily blog reading. I ambitiously set out to photograph each of the places I'm listing - a rather long list, let me tell you - even though they only run 3 or 4 photos, the idea being that I'd link to my own more photo-driven version. I'm still going for it - but man, it's taking a while! There are such great businesses here in Durham, many of them with unique and creative design.

Bryan and Erin from Ox & Rabbit, the nicest people you could hope for. They got engaged in Boston (!) this winter, and are getting married near Asheville this August. I adore their shop with it's great selection and yummy soda fountain.

So, here's to being back. And here's to summer, with its (hopefully) continually busy workload and plenty of afternoons to sit around on porches, drinking and talking with neighbors and friends in the delicious North Carolina heat.

Cullen and Lochlan

2009-05-01T13:03:00.000-05:00

I gotta be honest, the 2-3 age range is tough - and this shoot consisted of one of each! Fortunately for me, both these awesome kids with their strong Irish names held up like super stars.

The Little Munch

2009-05-01T13:02:00.000-05:00

This is Natalie and Harris' nickname for their plump and perfect new baby, Madeline. I love working with families who are up for anything - especially lying around while I crawl all over their bed taking photos. We had a lot of fun that Sunday afternoon.

Papa Mojo's Roadhouse

2009-05-01T13:01:00.002-05:00

Another Steve Peters project. Check out that wall of mantles! Mel Melton, a.k.a. Papa Mojo, is also an area musician whose band I photographed when I was - are you ready? - about 15! Talk about full circle. We have plans to do another music shoot soon.

A Taste of Home

2009-05-01T13:00:00.001-05:00

Hidden Voices held a wonderful fundraiser called "A Taste of Home", in which dozens of top area chefs donated dessert creations to raise money for their next project, "Home is Not One Story."

I photographed a couple of the chefs. Alessa Geboff from Elaine's:

And Katrina Ryan from Sugarland:

The King's Daughters Inn

2009-05-01T12:59:00.001-05:00

I was lucky enough to get to shoot photos for the opening weekend of a new B&B here in Durham, the King's Daughters Inn. The Inn was formerly a home for retired, single women beginning in 1911 and continuing throughout much of the 20th Century. Some of the original King's Daughters volunteers were able to come to the opening, and they had such a ball being led through room after beautiful room.

This space is absolutely stunning, and I hope to come back for many events. I know they'll be wildly successful.

Becki & Chad, April 11, 2009

2009-05-01T12:58:00.000-05:00

Chapel Hill, NC

In Fort Myers with Feeding America

2009-05-01T12:57:00.000-05:00

India's Gardens

2009-05-01T12:56:00.000-05:00

My across-the-street neighbor in Durham is India Swenson-Waring, a landscape designer who's been splitting her work between Richmond and Key West. She's among the group of us working on a house here in Cleveland-Holloway, and is slowly transitioning her business to Durham. In the beginning of April I got to go shoot some of her gardens in Miami and Key West as part of a trade of photography and web design for her designing and gardening our yard.

Man, am I excited! This lady is so talented. The landscapes she creates are lush and mysterious, beautifully layered and inviting. I can't wait to see what she can do with our house! If you need a landscape designer in the Durham/Chapel Hill area, let me know and I'll send you to her.

Feeding America Annual Conference in Orlando

2009-05-01T12:55:00.001-05:00

Look who showed up: it's David Arquette!

Ken Gasch of Seagroves Realty

2009-05-01T12:54:00.001-05:00

The Duke School

2009-05-01T12:53:00.000-05:00

More shots of the amazing folks at Duke School in March... this time in their new digs.

The Murphy School

2009-05-01T12:52:00.000-05:00

February, 2009

I'm doing photos of the renovation of the old Murphy School on NC-10 - currently being converted into space for mental health nonprofits. I used to pass this place all the time, and was convinced it was haunted. I'm not un-convinced yet. For a period in the '80s, the place was a nightclub... and if any kind of ghosts are going to hang around, it's the ghosts of '80s disco rednecks.

Steve Peters Design Works

2009-05-01T12:51:00.000-05:00

Steve Peters Design Works on Foster Street in Durham is a veritable playground for folks renovating their homes, especially for those with an eye for old fixtures, clawfoot tubs, and salvaged mantles, pillars, and other goodies. We found several of our doors at Steve's, and had his talented crew install them. Recently I've been photographing a few of his projects. Check out his amazing, custom-designed furniture:

These are from a house in Chapel Hill for which Steve provided most of the doors, the banister, and the kitchen counter top.

More Travels for Feeding America

2009-05-01T12:50:00.000-05:00

In late November and early December, I was hired to do more portraits for Feeding America, this time in Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky. These portraits are for a coffee table book that will feature food pantry clients from across the country. I worked on the same project as Mark's studio manager last spring, so I had some sense of how the project would go (note, for example, the horizontal and off-to-the-side framing, to accommodate for each photo covering a two-page spread).

Here are some of the amazing people I met during my travels.

Atlanta, GA:

Montgomery, AL:

Wilmington, NC:

Charleston, SC:

Outside Knoxville, TN:

Louisville, KY:

Peggy and Malcolm

2009-05-01T12:49:00.000-05:00

November, 2008

In Indiana with Feeding America

2009-05-01T12:48:00.000-05:00

November, 2008

There was something about doing a shoot like this one in Gary, Indiana, immediately following the euphoria of the presidential election, that felt both grounding and incredibly inspiring.

Kim and Chris

2009-05-01T12:47:00.000-05:00

October 2008

Kim has been in my life since the start of this blog; she was brave enough to sign on as my roommate in a very sketchy, run-down (but so promising! nothing a few coats of paint can't fix!) apartment in Boston's South End. Now she's getting married, and I may or may not take a smidge of responsibility for encouraging her to date the very sweet guy, Chris, despite the fact that he was moving away to grad school in a few months. She did date him, he did move, and they did somehow manage - and now they're getting married in May!

We played around at Duke Gardens, classic engagement and wedding spot, dodging brides and fiances to get our shots.

The Duke School

2009-05-01T12:46:00.001-05:00

October 2008: I've never been one to complain about my public school education (well, okay, maybe a little bit during early high school when my best friend went to Friends School and I was stuck at Orange High and rather miserable), but being around the incredible kids and teachers at the Duke School in Durham for two days really made me want to go back in time and complain to my parents. The environment is pretty amazing - hands-on, and the kids really have a voice and are encouraged to explore. I was so impressed whenever I heard something come out of their mouths. A few favorites:

Bittersweet

2008-10-09T18:37:00.003-05:00

It does feel good: your own photos on the front page of the local paper, above the fold. Unfortunately, in all the press that this project has been getting - the project I did portraits for and which I'm so excited about - this one piece neglected photo credit, so no one will know I shot them! Shame on you, Herald Sun. Usually I'm not crazed to get every piece of photo credit I can, but this piece was well-designed (and shit! On the front page of the paper!) and I would have liked that. Oh well.

I know I've been majorly neglectful of this blog. I plan to make amends soon; a few other life things have gotten in the way. Stay tuned!

Changing Landscapes: Another Guest Post by Meredith

2008-08-31T11:11:00.012-05:00

So Jessie and I started talking about posting again as soon as we finished the last one. Really, right after, as in, minutes. Because life moves fast on the open roads, ladies and gents: maybe it hasn't seemed that long in real-world, daily-routine, non-road-trip time, but suddenly we find ourselves 2,903 miles, 8 states, many incredible sunsets, and one Democratic National Convention away from our last update, and unsure where to begin sharing. Every passing hour has brought new scenery and countless adventures, making our thoughts so quickly outdated that the task of summing them up has come to seem more daunting and urgent with every passing state line or personal revelation.

Jessie on her 26th birthday on Tuesday:

And now, here we are, in Portland. Destination safely reached: Jessie has successfully delivered me to my new home and completed a significant journey of her own in the process. And while we are certainly still too close to our journey to see the full shape and size it will take in our current lives, we are just far enough to find a few common themes we need, a few little nuggets of wisdom that we can put in our pockets and keep as we return to our new realities.

And so, we bring you a post in three acts (invoke Ira Glass here): we've picked a theme, and we now bring you a variety of stories on that theme. This week's show: Changing Landscapes. A note to our listeners: the following post may not be appropriate for our younger readers, as it does acknowledge the existence of body-altering art, and temporary goodbyes between good friends.

Act One. Changing Landscapes: Does nature adhere to state lines?
Despite all of the pit stops, landmarks, and visits that will make up most of the headlines, the majority of the roughly 50 hours we were on the road was spent staring out the window at the most beautiful and quickly changing scenery we've ever scene. We watched our country go by, and payed attention to the places that such vast landscapes took our thoughts. And we never got tired of looking: it was truly amazing how quickly we could go from looking at a distant mountain range to suddenly driving through it, or how rapidly the flat, brown-dirt mesas of New Mexico turned into the rolling mountains of Colorado. And, luckily for you and me, we had Jessie along to capture some of this beauty for us:

Act Two. Changing Landscapes: A Hopeful Moment in American Politics
In Denver, history welcomed Jessie and me with open arms: we accidentally arrived just in time for the DNC. We ran into Abe Lincoln on a bike, saw some heated words exchanged between pro-life protesters and passers-by, and watched Obama's face go by on t-shirt after countless t-shirt. Also, Kenzie (our dear old friend and gracious Denver host) and I discovered the immediate authority bestowed upon anyone sitting behind an official-looking table, even if they aren't so official looking themselves: we volunteered 1o minutes of our day to table (uninvited) for the National Jewish Democratic Council, and direct interested parties towards their meeting. We can only hope we changed some lives in the process.

In keeping with our theme, however, the most meaningful moment of our DNC adventure came later, after our departure from Denver, amidst the changing landscape of an extended Wyoming sunset. Jessie adjusted our radio dial just in time to hear Barack Obama share his vision for our country as we watched the sun go down beyond the mountains. As Obama's "soaring rhetoric" combined with the soaring beauty of Wyoming's landscape, I think we both teared up a little. We felt like a moment in history had been carefully choreographed just for us.

Act Three. Changing Landscapes: 2 Ladies, 2 New Life Adventures
And now, as all of the analysts discussed at length about Obama's speech: how do we apply the soaring rhetoric of our journey to our own concrete plans? Jessie and I both find ourselves at exciting crossroads: she is, literally, building a new home for herself in Durham with a conscientiousness and vision that I find inspiring. And while my own new home doesn't need any structural attention, I'm planning to do some life building of my own here in Portland. Having each other to process these changes with, amidst the quickly changing backdrop outside our windows, has meant everything: the best thing a best friend can do is know you well enough to figure out what stays constant among the changes, and push you towards the changes that will make you more of the person they know and love. And what I find the most inspiring of all is the way that we've both initiated these changes in our lives: we're not just along for the ride, but changing the route as we go. We'll make sure to keep sending postcards along the way.

Picking tomatoes for dinner at Althea's house in Portland...

At a gift shop in Santa Fe...

Looking out at Park City, Utah, from our incredible hosts' hot tub...

A few images from Salt Lake City...

More photos from our trip can be seen here.

Okay, there's a special Act Four: Jessie, in celebration of all of the changing landscapes mentioned above, decided to alter her own physical landscape in the most bad-ass and inspiring of ways: if our take-home message can be summed up in images, here it is folks. One pre:

...and one post:

--Meredith

Notes from the Road: A Guest Post by Meredith

2008-08-26T12:08:00.005-05:00

So far: we are 9 cups of coffee, 5 tanks of gas, 3 states, 1,132 miles, one historic landmark, 2 plums, a bushel of peaches, and two closely-averted disasters into our roadtrip. We’ve driven through two rainstorms, and hit traffic once (although surprisingly not in Dallas at rush hour).

Day 1, a mere 3/4s of a tank into our trip: we began looking for a gas station. As the needle dipped another 16th of tank with no exits in sight, we began to get a little edgy (Jessie: “What if we run out of gas?” Meredith: “We won’t run out.” 5 minutes later: Jessie: “But what would we do if we did run out? Meredith: “We’re ok. The empty light’s not even on yet.” As if on cue . . .) As the needle dips further and the yellow gas light stares us in the face, we begin to get desperate: we take an unmarked exit into rural Louisiana figuring wildly that “people who live here must need gas” – a mile down the road, we pass a man on horseback, and truly panic. That panic, however, quickly turned to elation as we rounded a bend and approached a blinking stoplight – 2 people have never been so happy to enter a town comprised solely of an Exxon and a Sonic. Hell yeah, Mansfield.

Day 1, evening: a single dramatic moment became an hour long spectacle as we drove continually west into the sunset (and movie watchers waited in vain for the credits to roll – it got awkward. From Jessie: “Wow, what an amazing sunset!” to Meredith, an hour later: “Is the sun still setting? It’s been dusk for a really long time.”).

Day 2, West Texas: Yesterday morning the hotel clerk seemed suspicious of our somewhat routine “Good Morning," ("Is it?” he responded with a meaningful look) and in the afternoon we unwrapped silverwear from cloth bandanas before chowing down on our country fried steack, okra, potatoes and cornbread (and what Jessie described as “Beanie Weanies – mainly weanies – in ketchup sauce”).

Day 3, and all is well: The bike hasn’t fallen off the car yet, and those 2 police cars that pulled us over for the egregious crime of going 76 mph in a 70 mile zone? They were kind enough to let us go with a mere warning. Santa Fe has greeted us with a glorious morning in honor of Jessie's birth . . . we'll have to get back to you about the adventures this town holds. For now, wish us happy sightseeing and good luck with the uphill driving as we approach Denver.

- Meredith

Semi-Organized Chaos

2008-08-19T12:39:00.007-05:00

Slow network users be warned: this is a photo-heavy post.

*Last weekend I went with my mom and sister to Arkansas for my grandmother's memorial service. I'm really glad we did it. Here's a shot from the house mom grew up in... the beautiful house, falling into beautiful decay (if you can manager to find decay beautiful mixed with the sad).

*Jumping back a bit. Following my last post - no, literally, 12 hours later - I got a call that went something like this: "Hi, Jessie? This is ____ from Brelli. We heard that your umbrella broke and we'd like to get your address so we can send you a new one right away." Tempted as I was to yell, "I'm not giving you my address, you crazy-head, are you spying on me???", I did not. Turns out, once in a while, being a blogger can come in pretty handy! My new umbrella was waiting for me in NC, and I can honestly say I have never, ever had such incredible (and pre-emptive! I hadn't even called them to complain yet!) customer service in my life.

*(Although Olympus came close recently - my point-and-shoot came back from the shop and promptly broke again, and instead of repairing it they sent me a brand new model, box and everything. I love Oly.)

*The send-off party was a lot of fun (even though we ran out of booze). Above is one of my favorite shots, of Andreas and Marin. Below is my favorite of me and Mark.

*Our friends rocked the move-out process, which allowed us to rock the Penske driving down to NC, exhausted though we were. The apartment was sooo empty. And looked so small that way.

*Oh, I already mentioned the Blurb book. Here's the cover of it anyway, and it links to the site.

*We didn't get nearly as many portraits as we wanted to for our project. Here's the handful, in thumbnails. Click on the descriptions below to see them full-size. I don't know why Flickr always waters down contrast and saturation from my original photos... I try to account for it but am not always successful.

1. Seizi 2, 2. Jess 2, 3. Sean 2, 4. Emily 2, 5. Joe 2, 6. Melissa 2, 7. Georgia 2, 8. Rachel 2

1. Seizi 1, 2. Jess 1, 3. Sean 1, 4. Emily 1, 5. Joe 1, 6. Melissa 1, 7. Georgia 1, 8. Rachel 1

*Practically my first minute in Durham (which I'll mostly be writing about in the house-y blog, shaketheframe. com), I was plunked down in a group of photographers who meet biweekly and... basically... try to inspire each other to shoot better work. They are amazing. I feel humbled and crazy-lucky to have found them, thanks to Tyler (via Grace, my wonderful new friend). The first week I was there, we self-assigned a project based simply around the theme of water. Here's mine, based on an accident (the first shot was hugely overexposed; didn't have my settings right).

*Here's Jaden, whose headshots I did my first week to help him out for a real honest-to-goodness New York audition. He is an amazing singer/actor/dancer!

*He is also 9.

Forgive the massive unloading of photo-related news. Now I have to update Shake the Frame, which is even more daunting. Check back in a day or two.

Recurring Themes of My Life

2008-07-24T22:38:00.007-05:00

Dear Friends,

I'm sorry for the drop-off in my posting lately. The last couple months have been a long lead-up to a change that feels like riding a slightly out-of-control bike down a steep hill; before, I was peddling uphill hard, trying to set something in motion, in control, making slow progress. Then the momentum picked up and now this downhill spree. I am definitely in the thick of it and it's all so blurry and confusing and emotional that all the stressors have kind of flown away and all I'm left with is... me.

Today, leaving the studio with the last of my things, I was walking my loaded-down bike in the rain in Central Square and found a baby bird on its side near a planter outside the Bank of America, shivering and in shock. With a couple of postcards I was able to get it into the planter among the flowers and called Animal Control, who said they'd send someone over and have a vet look at it, but that there was a good chance it would be euthanized if it had fallen so hard that it wasn't hopping around. Sad, right? But the thing is I have a history of this exact situation, always falling at the moment of a huge life transition. These little birds are signs.

On my first full day in Florence after graduation college, unclear of what the hell I was there to do or how my life would unfold, I was walking aimlessly down the street where I would soon live toward the river Arno when a bird fell from its nest in the rafters four stories up. It settled under the wheel of a car and looked shocked. I stood there for a long time not knowing what to do - I had nothing to transport it in, there were only high walls around me, I didn't have a phone, I knew no one - and eventually I walked away. Even then I felt the symbolism, the bad sign for my first real venture so far from home. And Italy didn't go so well; I had many fits and starts and was ultimately quite unhappy and, a few months later, decided to come home.

Which, of course, is when things turned up. I met a friend to play music with, and a boy to keep me company, and on my last night in the country, before TJ and I were to play a gig at our favorite club in Florence, I took a break from packing to walk down to the river for sunset. I nearly stepped on an orange-beaked baby bird with its wings spread out in the street. It was another fallen baby bird. I flagged down a guy on a bicycle who didn't know what to do. My friends weren't around. As a car came towards us, I tried to shoo the bird onto the narrow sidewalk - and to my surprise, it actually took off, albeit clumsily, and made it to the top of a high garden fence. It paused there for a moment, then flew in.

(I have always assumed, without a doubt, that it ultimately made it - that some lucky cat was not waiting on the other side of that fence.)

So there I was again today, walking away from the bird who was perhaps rescued and set free by Animal Control, perhaps not. Today's little bird carried a less clear message.

Then, there's the other thing... I'm sure you remember my obsession with broken umbrellas (I even got around to publishing a Blurb book for their bookmaking contest, which I'm thinking of as a first draft, as it still needs some editing and design flourish, but it's a start and my plan is to send it out to a small Boston publisher to aim at gift and novelty shops), and I even bought a Brelli this past March. Well, today, in a strong gust of wind that pressed down on the outside of it, it BROKE! The wooden spokes caved under the pressure and cracked. At first I was flustered and indignant, but Rachel, who was with me, pointed out that, considering my project, it was kind of appropriate. And she's right - it is oddly fitting that my own umbrella would break today.

Tomorrow we finish packing and throw our party, where TJ (the friend I played with in Italy - another part of the full circle) will set up and play, and we'll have a photo booth for friends to goof off and take pictures in. Then we load the truck the next day and hit the road to NC. I hope that there, eventually, the steep hill we've been flying down will level off and life will slow down and settle a little. Then we'll start building it right back up.

I know this has been awfully text-heavy for a photo blog.... so, in the spirit of transition or at least transportation, I'll leave you with one recent image I couldn't resist sneaking on a bus... I love the shape of this guy's neck, and his jacket.

Matt and I are working on a portrait project of our friends that I SO wish we'd been able to devote tons more time to. I'll share them here once we're settled in NC.

I also need to write about other photo news; the jobs I've been doing here, the work I've miraculously already got lined up after the move. I'm booked for a full week of shooting in August and a day in September with a good chance for more work. It almost feels real now, the whole "I'm a photographer" thing.

Wishing you all well out there. I already miss everyone so much.

Love,
Jessie

Jessie in Print - the Print Version!

2008-06-19T21:07:00.004-05:00

Not bad. They even ran the one I preferred over the web version.

A couple outtakes.... what do you think?

Jessie in Print - the Web Version

2008-06-18T08:30:00.005-05:00

Check back later for the print version, as well as outtakes (and my favorites...)

Photo Stuff Of Late

2008-06-12T17:31:00.001-05:00

I totally missed my deadline of last Sunday to post... I can be very lenient as my own boss.

This big news is that I got my first Boston Phoenix assignment yesterday! I got the call with less than two days to turn the project around, so I made arrangements and did the shoot last night, thinking I could go back today sometime if necessary (it was an editorial portrait of a jazz musician in Dorchester). But I turned in what I shot, and they seemed to like it, I-think-maybe! It will take some distance to gauge how I actually feel I did. It reminds me of when I used to sing.... whenever I would get off stage I'd have this weird, removed feeling of having no idea how I'd done, and not even remembering the experience very well.

The shot comes out next week in the Arts section (probably teeny-tiny, but I don't care!). Expect a post. No, really.

The lovely Chagmion Antoine was in town a couple of weeks ago and brightened my whole week with her presence.

(Look at my expression... that's love!)

She also snuck me in to the dress rehearsal of Cyndi Lauper's True Colors tour, which she was covering for LOGO. Imagine: me, maybe 12 other people milling around the Bank of America Pavilion, Cyndi hanging out, Rosie O'D. onstage running through her routine and bitching about the teleprompters not moving fast enough, the B-52's doing their whole set, Carson Kressley from "Queer Eye" as the emcee being funny and inappropriate with the audience, then Cyndi running through her set. She stopped halfway through the first song to change her shoes, which were 5-inch platforms. "I tried the shoes... I hate the shoes," she apologized.

I also managed to get in a yoga shoot with Marie before she and Jamie moved away to Poughkeepsie (sigh...). This is my favorite, even though it's not as yoga-y as some of the others.

This is several weeks old now, but these are part of a shoot I did with a lovely family in the Back Bay.

I'll leave the photos of my shoot with Sonia Chang-Diaz, who's running for State Senate in the Second Suffolk District of Boston and whose campaign photos I did two years ago as my one of my first assignments, for next time. Whew!

I'll Have Poppyseeds in My Teeth Until July

2008-05-29T17:55:00.012-05:00

Recently someone has been painting a mural on the side of the building next to ours. It's a nice sight to come home to every day.

See the little "house" sitting on top of our building? That's where our landlords live. They also own the wine shop, restaurant, and bar that are all part of the building. They have an elevator that takes them up to their house (unlike us - we hike the 5 flights every day) and a patio above our apartment. It seems like a really nice way to live. Not that I'm complaining. Here's my pretty bike:

I spent last weekend in Oberlin for my 5th college reunion. It was technically my 4th - they do these things in clusters, which is nice because you get to see people from other classes, too.

It was completely wonderful; I think I felt even more myself and at home there than I did when I was actually a student. I've kept some strong bonds; and others I was able to pick up right where we left off.

More photos here from Oberlin.

........

Remember the poppyseed cake Matt's grandma made? The one I rave about all the time? Here, I'll refresh your memory.

Well, my lovely significant other slaved away until 2am last night (most of it, I have to tell you, spent on the phone with his grandma for culinary support) making his own makowiec (pronounced, I think "mah-KOH-vitz"). I awoke this morning to a finger full of icing to taste.

It may be a ploy to get me to not go away so much. It may work.

(Note: I think he would want me to tell you that this is the less pretty of the two rolls he made; the other, which is beautiful, is for some good friends of ours who are leaving and who have fed us well over our friendship.)

Oh Sure Go Ahead, Reference Me!

2008-05-18T05:26:00.003-05:00

Ooh, I love finding myself on the internet (like here and here). It's like being in high school and finding out through the grapevine that some really cool kid thinks you're kind of okay.

Oh yes, and another one here, but that HARDLY counts as I sort of live with the boy.... thanks, Matthew!

Mothers

2008-05-13T12:59:00.004-05:00

To my grandmother (my mom's mother), who passed away on Mother's Day, May 11, 2008.

Verdant North Carolina

2008-05-08T19:03:00.004-05:00

This is my view from my childhood bedroom, just as comforting as I remember it.

NC is, of course, on my mind a lot these days, as I wrap my head around the impending move and imagine a home transforming from a shell to my inner interior designer's dream. My head is full of legal lingo and real estate jargon, but I'm constantly blinded by thoughts of big windows... friendly porches... spiral staircases... grassy back yards... wood floors. I am so excited.

More news once I'm not so scared of jinxing myself.

The Only Sure Thing is Change

2008-04-23T10:20:00.009-05:00

Or is it death? Taxes? That seems right, after the hefty estimated taxes I just paid the IRS.

Poor blog. It's really taken a hit this year. The thing is, I mostly use the blog as a venue for posting new photography, but in the past several months I've been so busy in my role as studio manager that I do my own work much less frequently.

Before I get into that, though... here's some recent(ish) Holga shots, taken downtown a month or two ago.

And some long-overdue ones from the Southie St. Patty's Day Parade ages ago.... I'm still working out a system for scanning my film edges, so I gave up after a couple and used the film holder.

Left to right: John and Judy (our lovely hosts, outside Judy West's studio), photographer Clark Quinn

John and Mark Hunt

Me and Clark

So, the big news... which I've pretty widely broadcast at this point... is that I'm picking up and leaving Boston sometime in late July. Matthew has chosen UNC for grad school (not taking lightly the full scholarship and living stipend offered to him) and tomorrow, unbelievably, I fly to North Carolina to scope out the housing situation in Durham. As in: we may buy a house. Maybe. Considering the prices and the recent revitalization in east Durham, it seems crazy not to. I'm excited and overwhelmed. Not to mention that I've got to pick up this crazy lucky work situation I've got going here and somehow transplant it in NC. I hope it takes to new soil.

In other news.... one of Matt's brothers, Josh, came to visit last weekend. More pictures from his visit can be seen here. He was fantastic, fun to be around, willing to try new and "different" things like curry, gnocchi, and Passover seders with liberals, feminists, and lesbians. He's an awesome guy and we totally loved having him.

Here's Josh, looking skeptically at the seder plate.

And out to dinner in the North End, at the fanciest meal he'd ever had.

It also got me out into the city again.

Check this out... on Saturday we were passing the South End photo lab, right around the corner from my old apartment, and I noticed a familiar looking photo in the window. I said, "hey guys.... I think I took that shot." Only after scrutiny did I notice my name in the window!

The shot was taken at a park cleanup I photographed last October, I think, in Ringgold Park in the South End. Who knew one of the shots won a contest! They even got my name right.

I leave you with the mostly-completed kitchen project. The doors are chalkboard now. I'm still looking for some kind of white border or flair to adorn them.

Okay, one more. 'Cause I can't seem to get enough pictures of Matt.

'Til next time! More updates on NC as plans unfold.

Images from Buffalo

2008-04-02T21:20:00.006-05:00

This is Matt's littlest brother, Noah, who's 7.

Matt testing out his brother Josh's bb gun...

Grandma Lesinski's lace curtains...

Niagara Falls at night...

Aunt Noreen watching TV with Quincy, the cat...

Ungodly good poppyseed cake that Matt's Grandma Lesinski makes... this time just for me.

Lunch at Grandma Dudek's house...

Matt accepts a sweater from Grandma Dudek...

Grandma Dudek probably saying something inappropriate to Grandpa Dudek (I love her)...

Noreen set up a slideshow of old family pictures... Joy and Noah playing in the light...

Joy at the stable on our last day in Buffalo...

Throughout the weekend, I let Noah use my camera. As I went back through the images later, I realized what a keen and natural eye this kid has. Here are a few of my favorites...

(Photographs by Noah Dudek, age 7)

More photos here and here.

Here's a shot of all the Dudek kids (minus Dan, who couldn't make it) in Cambridge last summer. What a good-looking bunch.

Happy Anniversary to Me... and My City

2008-03-16T10:08:00.003-05:00

What a cool three years it's been.

There was the multitude of jobs, evolving from ill-fitting to my dream job. All the spaces in which I've lived... beautiful, light-filled apartments. First my gorgeous, tall-ceilinged place in the North End, which was so noisy I tried to avoid staying there on the weekends, but had a view from the roof that couldn't be topped; then my slum-ish South End apartment which, with a weekend's help from my parents, was turned into a workable floor plan and eventually a wonderful apartment; and now my apartment here in Central Square above the Cellar, which needed only to be made our own.

Some friends have moved on, but most are still here, scattered around the perimeter of the city and never more than a T ride away. Many of them have changed in huge ways since I knew them; mostly I think of them as always staying the same, forever.

Almost exactly one year into my tenure here in Boston - 2 years ago - I convinced myself that this would not be the chapter in which I would meet anyone of any consequence. Almost immediately after that mental decision, I met the sweetest boy the city could dream up. He describes the feeling similarly: with Legos. "You look and look for this one little piece that you want, and you waste all this time going through all the Legos looking for it, and then finally you give up and just start working on something else. The minute you do, that perfect piece appears out of nowhere." I'm keeping this piece in my pocket.

Thanks for experiencing my nostalgia with me. Place gets into you if you spend even the smallest amount of time in it; it becomes your documented history, your story, and as good as the genes that direct who you are.

Getting Through to Spring

2008-03-02T19:08:00.003-05:00

Oh, it's so close now I can smell it, but we still manage to get dumped on with snow and ice every few days (it seems). Gotta find that balance between looking forward to better weather, and knowing there's a long, chilly, rainy spring ahead.

When I first moved to Boston almost three years ago (our anniversary, Boston's and mine, is March 15), I found the spring weather so absurd that, on my way to work at a soulless temp job, I would find myself laughing hysterically while watching all the business commuters struggle to keep their skirts down, hats on, and umbrellas concave. I started photographing all the broken umbrellas I saw in the city, a project I still want to do something with, and which gave birth to my love of the umbrella theme.

It's pretty much work these days, aside from a few little events - like a visit from Johanna, Nathan, and William, who were down for a surgery for little William. William and I, we're like old buddies now; we take some time to catch up.

The pizza Matt was eating was a source of great fascination.

This past weekend I finally got around to a project I've been wanting to do for weeks - which I can't show you until a few days from now when it's completely done, but here's a sneak peak:

There are potential changes ahead for me... big changes. And, potentially, not. As a person uncomfortable with not being able to plan ahead, I am jumping out of my skin like a 5-year-old who really has to pee. But at the same time... it's kind of fun, not knowing for sure what's next. It's making me nostalgic about both situations. More details as they unfold.

As for you cold weather dwellers... hang in there. Get a strong umbrella and some good rubber boots.

Feeling Filmy

2008-02-28T12:39:00.003-05:00

Here's a recent shot of Mark after a shoot in an unfinished office building in Cambridge. I dig that fluorescent glow.

Love is a Bowl

2008-02-23T17:54:00.003-05:00

This is Julia in North Carolina, seven years ago.

Julia once woke me in the middle of a nap in college in which I'd been dreaming that love is a bowl. I told her it was silly, but she insisted on hearing. What I meant, in that foggy, vague dream logic, was that when you first start to love someone, they are like a plate; they don't know how to contain the love, and it spills over the sides and away. Gradually, though, the flow of love begins to deepen the shape of them, and they become bowl-shaped to contain your love.

A few months later Julia gave me an imperfect, hand-carved wooden bowl from Kenya. It was a bowl meant for honey. She told me women would put it in their windows, and if a certain kind of mockingbird came and tasted the honey, it said good things about the woman's fertility, I think.

I don't know about that, but I do know that it's difficult to describe how much love I have for this girl. If love is a bowl, I hope Julia has a cauldron over there in France.

Jessie the Curator!

2008-02-12T19:40:00.000-05:00

Here are a few shots from our very successful gallery showing this past weekend. The photographs were taken by teenage girls at a residential treatment program where Mark and I taught a workshop, and where I'm continuing teaching.

Student artist, intern, photographer, studio manager:

We got some great publicity, and people streamed in and out the whole time. I couldn't have been happier, or more exhausted.

The next day I had my second shoot with a Beacon Hill family, this time in the studio. Noah is now 9 months old.

Mama-baby yoga!

This week was supposed to be equally as nutty as the last... but Mark and I both woke up with bad colds/coughs yesterday morning and were out flat. We had to cancel three shoots, and have no choice but to rest up for tomorrow's, which can't be rescheduled.

In the occasional weekend days I have to myself, I've been feeling crafty, thanks to inspiration from all the blogs I read of design nature: namely Design Sponge, Oh Joy!, and poppytalk. I absconded with some wooden wine crates from the wine shop downstairs, and papered them with beautiful papers from Paper Source. So far they just draw attention to my crappy kitchen cupboard and wall, but soon I plan to paint the cabinets white with chalkboard doors, and hide that ugly wall behind hanging pans, spoons, and other kitchen things.

Okay, that's all I can muster the energy for today. I have to drag myself to the studio to get ready for tomorrow's shoot. I'm so buried in unfinished editing and other work that I can't quite see the light... hopefully this coming weekend can provide some catching up, resting, and belated Valentine's Day celebrating.

A Picture of Liberty

2008-02-01T12:06:00.001-05:00

I had to stop for this shot yesterday in Holyoke, Mass, the poorest city in the state.

Am less crazy about the second one, but decided to post it anyway.

It was one of those "should I stop or should I just let it go" moments, and I decided not to regret anything, hoping it'll be habit-forming.

Two shoots coming up this weekend, and soon, hopefully, a house-y post by all the design blogs I've been reading lately.

Have a splendid weekend, everybody.

The (Ironic) Silver Lining

2008-01-24T19:05:00.000-05:00

Sooo, I'm not off to the best start in this whole doing-a-project-every-week endeavor. However: last week threw me a minor curve ball when, sometime during the day, someone got past the locked door to my apartment, walk straight ahead to the table, picked up both Matt's and my computers, and left, without mussing up so much as a single, lesser appliance - not even our iPods which lay on the couch in plain view. Stupidly, we kept looking for long after we should have - it was just so surreal that they were gone. It took us a few days to warm back up to our apartment - even after changing the locks and committing to locking the deadbolt - but now we are fine, and grateful that it wasn't worse. My back-up drives, for example, sat right where I'd left them. I only lost maybe a couple uploads of personal pictures. Matt, I'm sorry to say, lost an expensive, 6-month-old computer that hadn't been backed up. Neither of us had renter's insurance. We learned the hard way so YOU don't have to.

Oh, the irony part? I've been saying lately to various people that I want a break from computers - a good, clean, detox-like purge for a little while, to remind myself of the importance of things non-digital in life. Looks like the experiment didn't feel like waiting. It was short-lived, but it was kind of nice, reading in the evenings instead of click-click-clicking until bedtime.

My camera shutter hasn't been completely still. Here's William, whom you last met at negative-2-months old.

Also, on a shoot with Mark recently, I was so excited about meeting my favorite young-adults author that I was allowed to take a few shots of my own. I was very nervous, though, and didn't quite get the effect I was going for - partly because I was absolutely blinding her in the sunlight. I kind of love the one with her eyes closed.

Lately on my Sitemeter I've been getting all these blog hits from Google Image searches, but I can't seem to find the search terms used to take people there. The hits come from all over the world, and seem to bring people mostly to this image, along with a few others. Anyone have any idea? It's very confusing. I can't find it posted anywhere... but I've gotten hundreds and hundreds of hits linking from it.

Okay. Now I've stretched my blogging muscles. With any luck, I'll be back next week.

Less is More, More, More

2008-01-12T17:57:00.000-05:00

I've been encouraged to post more often and less lengthily, so here's one quick image for you. I took it almost a year ago, wandering around downtown Boston at night with Matt, my camera, and a tripod.

I was doing some darkroom work today for Mark, so I figured I'd print one of my own shots too. I actually did a couple, but I ruined the other by flattening it in the print flattener before it was completely dry. Oops.

Starting to feel like the creative break is over... it's time to get back to my own work. Sure, it's tough on top of a more-than-full-time job and some semblance of a social life, but the world is before me, waiting to be pinned down on pixels or the occasional piece of film.

No time like the New Year to revamp and get busy.

Oh I Love It When it Rains

2007-12-30T20:16:00.001-05:00

Ah, home... the loaded word. For me, this month, it meant leaving my so-called, self-established one and visiting the one I've known longer than any other. The trip fell, as it often does, just when I needed it - after a very busy period at work, and in the midst of disgusting, dog-pee-yellow weather here in Boston. I couldn't wait.

It's crazy when your little sister graduates college - I know 'cause mine just did. December graduates often receive little fanfare, nor do they necessarily want it, but I felt we couldn't let the occasion pass without tooting a few horns. So Mom and I not-so-surreptitiously arranged a little party for Amanda, which turned out to be a lovely affair.

As I often do when I'm home, I spent lots of time poring through old journals from hilarious and often painful years of my life. This time, though, a main character reappeared in the flesh - my long-time friend Catherine Edgerton, who offered to give Matt and me a tour of Durham from a local's perspective.

Catherine is an artist and a musician; she helped start Bull City Headquarters, an arts space in Durham, and plays in a great band called Midtown Dickens. We went to see them play later that night at Local 506, and I've been listening to their CD since the summer. Check them out here, and if you only listen to one song, check out "Airplane". It's my favorite, and this post's title is a reference to it.

The other friend I saw was Meredith, who you should know well by now. Why do I always seem to photograph her at Cafe Driade?

One of the most exciting things about being in NC this time around was the biking - for Matt, that is. I should back up and explain that he's applying to grad school for next fall, in urban planning. Turns out UNC has one of the best programs in the country, and has gradually become Matt's first choice, occasionally challenged by MIT. I know it's jumping the gun a bit, thinking about where we might live this far in advance without even knowing where we'll be next fall, but... Durham just seems to hold a lot more for our interests than Chapel Hill. So Matt, being the die-hard biker he is, wanted to see how reasonable it was to bike from Durham to UNC's campus every day.

The verdict? It ain't bad, even in spite of the narrow shoulders and drivers bewildered by the presence of a biker before them. And so far, NC bikers seems waaaay more embracing than those here in Cambridge who call you "sir" if you don't fit their mold exactly! Matt has timidly started writing a bit on urban planning and hopefully will cover his Durham impressions soon.

The weekend before Christmas, Jesse and Rachel stopped by the farm on their way to Florida. we took 'em on a farm tour.

I got locked, briefly, in a shed.

Can't tell you how many of these guys I saw while home. Mostly while cruising by them with the brakes slammed on.

Jesse and Rachel also helped us pick out a good (and somewhat homely) Christmas tree for the house.

That picture reminds me... on Sunday morning, we awoke to news (from a neighbor's phone call) that all four donkeys had escaped and were up the road a ways. Mom and Dad went out and lured them safely back. Damned fence.

We did a little more Durham exploring - here's the American Tobacco Complex near downtown. Not sure if it "works" or not, but it's a pretty impressive effort at revitalization.

Sunday afternoon, gloriously, it started raining. Seems everyone else was less excited about this than I was.

Christmas itself was lovely and warm and happy.

The next afternoon Matt and I walked through the woods to the old cabin in the woods that was once part of a hippie commune. It's seen better days. I can imagine it 40 years ago; it would have made someone a comfortable and useful home. I think I heard that the house even had a darkroom once, small as it was.

Back in Boston and a little under the weather, I reveled in the dwindling days of my freedom and didn't leave the apartment for almost 48 hours. Those two days weren't entirely unproductive, though: I finally finished lining the kitchen cabinet with the paper I bought from Paper Source before Christmas. It really adds some flare to our tiny kitchen.

I finally got around to putting a bit more art up on the walls, too, mere moments before a holiday party we threw the week before Christmas.

I leave you with our little Christmas tree - a gift from Matt's Grandma Dudek from a church craft fair. It's made of safety pins and clear plastic beads, and stuffed full of twinkly lights.

Christmas wouldn't be Christmas for me without a little kitsch.

I Toast To You!

2007-12-06T11:37:00.000-05:00

Congratulations to Matt for getting his personal statement done, after many long, sleepless hours of toil. One down, 4 to go! I love you!

Thanks

2007-12-02T00:16:00.000-05:00

Trying a new way of showing you pictures, thanks to PictoBrowser Builder. There are three photo sets that follow. Feedback welcome.

First, going back a couple weeks, Mom and Dad came up to Boston to visit me and Amanda. We ate out a lot and took long walks along the river.

...Thanksgiving itself is always wonderful.

And I still can't get over the colors these days.

And last night, safely back in Boston, we brought in the season the right way: with traditional decorations, traditional singing, very traditional sweaters (Matt). It was a lovely affair.

Can You Handle It?

2007-11-17T11:23:00.000-05:00

Matt almost was unable to. The rest of the bar where we watched it, however, had a ball.

Watch here.

Fall in Short Chapters

2007-10-29T21:46:00.000-05:00

Around The Avenue...

The apartment perpetually coming together...

Sofa, plants, books, bike.

Semi-frequent jaunts to NH on photo shoots...

Early morning waffle breakfasts on the road...

Deep cleansing...

Familiar happy presences...

Quiet moments alone... or so it seems...

And the cake-taker... rainy days at home together when nobody has to leave the warm house.

Travels of the Mind, Body, and Palate

2007-10-14T12:03:00.001-05:00

Last weekend I scrambled desperately to reach the top of my workload, and Matt and I rented a car and drove to Quebec City, chasing oranges and reds and yellows the whole way up until Fall was undisputedly in its full glory. We were going to meet up with our Boston friends (now Ottawa friends) Marie and Jamie. If you've been reading this blog for a while you've seen their faces many times before.

Here are some more photos from the trip.

Yesterday, after shooting a little event at Community Servings' new location, I stayed in JP while Melissa and Georgia went shopping and made dinner. They just moved into a new house with a huge kitchen and separate dining room, and even got a piano to fill up some of the space and add warmth.

While I'm not particularly culinary-inclined myself, I've been especially inspired lately by blogs like twelve22 and, subsequently, port2port. So here are a few images from their incredibly autumnal dinner of pork chops with apples and onions, kale, and baked pumpkin squash with butter and brown sugar. For an appetizer Georgia roasted the seeds I'd extracted from the pumpkin squash in soy sauce and some other ingredient that escapes me.

I am lucky that people like these not only feed me, but let me sit around and take pictures while they cook. Makes a very happy Jessie.

Matt has been up to here in the books.

When he needs a break he practices his track stands in the livingroomkitchen.

On Friday, giddy at the prospect of an afternoon and evening free, we went to our beloved Cafe Sushi, and then set out into the city to get those red bean paste filled sesame balls from a bakery in Chinatown. Because we live in the city, because the world is at our fingertips, because we can think of anything we could possibly want for dessert and go out and get it just like that.

All hinging on the theory that the MBTA works like it's supposed to, which of course I'd forgotten it does not. We skipped down to Central and waited on the platform while three trains went in the other direction, but we were still smiling. The platform filled up with people, and finally we heard a train coming our way - but with a toot of the horn, it flew on by without stopping. An announcer told us through thick static that the train was running with delays, as if it wasn't obvious. Finally a fully-packed train pulled up and we managed to squeeze our way inside, determined to stay in good moods. At least we were on the damn thing.

Twenty minutes later, after sitting unmoving just inside the tunnel practically cheek to cheek with the other passengers and after getting word that there was both a disabled train and "police activity" at the stop ahead, and after waiting to move for 15 minutes and then finally not moving ahead but backwards into Central where the doors (begrudgingly, it seemed) opened and let us fall out, we slumped back home and drank a bottle of wine and watched a movie. Chinatown is more elusive than I thought. Good thing I like staying in.

Oh, and for those of you who don't know my other news....

...my friend Johanna had a baby!

(Did I scare you? Come on. I better not have.)

Johanna's little baby is named William Zeriah, and after a brief stay in the hospital in Boston, he finally got to go home with mommy and daddy. It was pretty special to see her with him... she's my first close friend to have a baby, and it was a little foreign, I have to say. Fortunately, it's so natural on her and she makes such a wonderful mom already that I think I'll get used to it pretty quickly. I can't wait to go visit again.

Newness

2007-09-24T22:32:00.001-05:00

It's still pretty basic, but at least I've got some more material for my galleries. Enjoy. Oh, and feedback is welcome. Photos that work, or don't work?

Grainy Dreamscapes

2007-09-22T18:13:00.001-05:00

Slowly scanning the Holga stuff I shot on my two weeks away, and gradually learning the finesse of scanning color negatives. Here's some highlights, starting from back during our NY jaunt.

A few from around Cambridge and Boston...

Mobile, Ala....

And one of Julia in Maine.

Against the realities of my budget, I went fall shopping today... a minor pick-me-up to ward off the onset of blues settling in due to the shortening of days. I've been keeping very busy with work and being a good girlfriend while Matt studies diligently for the GREs, and fortunately there are little trinkets of promising escape in the near future: namely, a car trip to Quebec City with Marie and Jamie in early October, and then Thanksgiving in New York with the fam.

Today I spent a part of the evening shooting more Holga at Haymarket... can't wait to see how those come out.

Love In Her Tummy

2007-09-11T16:47:00.000-05:00

Just wanted to share some photos of my beautiful friend Johanna, who, at the time of the photos, was 7 months pregnant... now she's only a couple of weeks away from her due date. She and her husband Nathan came down for a visit in August, and she and I played in the studio while it poured outside.

I can't wait to meet the person hiding out in there... I've known Johanna since we were in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" together as Oberon's fairies in 10th grade.

This fall promises to be busy in a different way than the past 9 months have been busy. I'm cutting back on my freelance in order to build a better body of work, in hopes of getting more interesting and higher-paying freelance in the future... and I'm also building a curriculum for 8 weeks of photography classes at a school for very, very troubled teenage girls, which I'll be co-teaching as well. I'm really looking forward to that.

Today, while filling out a CORI form so I can work at this school, I had to list all my addresses for the past 7 years. I almost couldn't do it. I figured there are about 10 of them, just counting those that were more than a couple months' duration. Crazy, ain't it? I wonder where that number will be by the time I'm 30? How many more times can I stand to move all my crap around (the key being, of course, not to acquire too much crap)?

I'll be checking in with you well before then, but expect slightly less frequent (but more exciting! More colorful! More fantastic!) posting in the near future.

Southbound - Post 2 - Plus Jessie Turns a Quarter-Century Old

2007-08-26T17:29:00.000-05:00

Today is my 25th birthday, and I'm pretty busy up here in Maine going on kayak expeditions, navigating 6-foot swells in the motorboat, eating seafood and lying around luxuriously with two of my best friends, Georgia and Julia. So this post will be photo-heavy. I just wanted to get caught up on the second half of my trip down to New Orleans.

As I came across the interstate bridge into New Orleans, I noticed an abandoned theme park - an old Six Flags, it turns out - stark against the sky.

From there I drove straight to Meredith's school to meet her, and spent some time there over the next couple days helping out in the classroom. I even got assigned the making of the "Reading Marathon" bulletin board. Here are some shots from around the school.

And this is the outside of the school they'll eventually be moving into, with the Superdome in the background.

The foliage in New Orleans has a peculiar kind of fruit hanging from the branches...

Here's my compassionate, intelligent, driven friend Meredith, in front of her house.

For better or worse, I don't have much else to show you from New Orleans - a handful of film shots, but I didn't take any shots in my driving around the lower 9th or the rest of the city. It felt obvious not to. We can talk about that later...

I headed back north on Saturday afternoon, and stopped for dinner at my favorite road restaurant.

On the trip back, I spent the night in Atlanta where my friend Fred, who's an excellent photographer and whom I've known since I was 14, lives with his sister Besha, her husband Ryan, and their little boy, Felix. We had a great night catching up, and played with Felix in the back yard in the morning before I left.

(For some reason when turned upside down, Felix felt it necessary to sing his ABC's. I don't know why he made this connection to being upside-down, but he did it every time.)

Next came one of my favorite parts of the whole trip: a Georgia flea market that kept me entertained for an hour and a half.

(Click on the picture below to fully appreciate the t-shirt on the left.)

Then it was back to North Carolina, where I spent several wonderful days with my family and with Matt, who flew down in time to see a break in the horrible drought. When the rain hit we'd just raced by car to the middle of a huge field near my farm, and ran around shrieking in the fat rain like little kids. We got completely drenched. It was one of the happiest moments I've had in years.

(No, he's not naked.)

And now here I am, on my 25th birthday with two of my favorite people in the world.

I am a wildly lucky person.

I am aware of this.

Southbound - Post 1

2007-08-16T12:20:00.001-05:00

As I'm sitting here posting pictures and thinking about my 14-hour drive down to New Orleans, Meredith is calling the parents of her students, giving them bus schedules and routes and telling them that school starts on Wednesday. She keeps running into pronunciation issues - street names that should be pronounced one way but aren't. I could hear her having trouble getting one street name across to a parent: "Villere Street, do you know it? No? V-I-L-L-E-R-E? Hm..." I whisper to her, "Try saying 'VILL-ery," and sure enough the parent responded with perfect recognition. Apparently around here, you never know.

I hit the road at 8am Tuesday a little bleary-eyed, but happy and prepared.

I stopped just across the state line in Georgia for lunch. I know I'm not the most credible reporter on temperature, but trust me - it is hot.

I bought some peaches from a guy off the interstate who asked if he could play me a song.

And considered having a bite to eat at Dad's Restaurant ("Don't croak without Jesus!")...

But wasn't quite hungry enough for such a big meal.

After that, I just pulled over once in a while to take pictures. These are all quick digital shots, but I've been shooting lots along the way with the Holga and the Mamiya TLR.

(As I was taking those last shots, a man in a pick-up truck eased up to the side of the road, rolled down his window, and said something completely unintelligible. I said, "What?" and he said, "Ah said, whhut's thayut fo-er?" I said, "Just traveling through, taking some pictures," and proceeded to tell him my basic route. He seemed okay with this, but not before backing up his truck, taking a long, hard look at my license plate, and another long look at me.)

Around 7pm I pulled into Montgomery, Alabama, and decided to call it quits for the night. I checked into a Ramada Inn and spent a few minutes on the feeble wireless checking work emails, then headed downtown to look for dinner.

Downtown is charming enough - but completely empty after business hours. I drove around until about 8:30 trying to find a restaurant, but there were only lunch spots as far as I could tell. Suddenly I was almost out of gas, and starving, and no closer to finding anywhere to eat. Defeated, I started to ride the fumes back to the interstate when I passed a house with a little sign out front that said, "Martha's Place." I parked and ran up to the porch - damn, just open for lunch.

I started to trudge away when a middle-aged man pushed through the screen door and asked if I needed anything; I apologized and said I was just looking for somewhere to eat, and had hoped they were open, but since they weren't, did he know where I could find a gas station? He started to give me directions someplace, but then stopped himself. "Well - what do you want?"

"What do you mean?"

"For dinner! I mean, do you like fried chicken?"

"Oh - that's okay, I'll just get something near my hotel, there's lots of fast food--"

"Naw, girl, we got fried chicken, lima beans... you like scalloped potatoes?" He proceeded to drag me inside and then disappeared into the kitchen, while I read articles on the wall about Martha, whose namesake the restaurant was; she was a welfare mom with 3 kids by the time she was 21, who "turned her life around" by opening this little place. A few minutes later my new friend "Hawk" (whose real name is Edward Hawkins) came out with a heavy plate of food, include cake and a huge glass of iced tea. He offered to set up a table for me, but I declined, not wanting him to go any further out of his way; they had been closed for over 5 hours, after all. But by the time I got back to my hotel room Hawk had single-handedly warmed my heart, and therefore Montgomery had found a place in it.

(I suppose I should point out, too, that he would take no payment for the meal. I was to be well-fed and that was that.)

Here's my new friend, and a very road-weary me:

And a feast fit for kings:

The next day, I still had a fair amount of road to cover, but I took back-roads whenever I could. The bridges on the interstate, however, over swamp and marshland, were a lot of fun.

Stopped for lunch in Mobile, which is 1,000 times more alive than Montgomery (Martha's Place aside). There was a huge restaurant on the corner of the main drag called Cafe Royal, but I chose a nearby dive instead, called The Royal Scam. Seemed fitting.

In Gulfport, Mississippi, I found that I was the only idiot trying to enjoy the out-of-doors, wading knee-deep in water that would be uncomfortably warm even for a bath. I walked way out on the concrete break-water anyway, marveling at the heat.

Gulfport was the first place where I started noticing huge storm damage. Signs bent to the ground, house-less foundations, skeletal piers.

And an hour or so later, rolling into New Orleans bound for the school where Meredith is about to start teaching 9, 10, and 11 year-olds how better communicate and analyze their lives through reading and writing, my chest felt tight; the closest I'd come to this scene was during the image-rich days of Hurricane Katrina, and the aftermath which I'd followed from my distant watch.

There's something profound about spending what seem like endless hours alone with yourself in a confined space with nowhere else to go except straight on ahead. If you're lucky... you get reminded that it's about so much more than you.

Droughts By Their Most Literal Definitions

2007-08-13T19:57:00.000-05:00

North Carolina is dry as a bone. I think of summer here as lush and green and buggy, but since I arrived yesterday, underslept and disoriented, it's been brown and crackly and buggy. It didn't stop me from doing my usual aimless walk around the farm with my camera and Buddy as my tour guide.

Other than the drought, things are pretty much the same. Maybe just a little more run-down... like me.

Except that my mom went and got a new bed for my room... which has spurred the decision that feeling the springs against your knees when you climb into bed is unacceptable, and I'm getting a new bed for my birthday as soon as I get back to Boston.

Some of the cats have gotten so old and dilapidated than I can't even look at them without the shield of my camera in front of my eye or my heart might break. We lost Bell, but somehow both Boots, who I got as a kitten when I was 7, and Cloudy, who we inherited, are still managing to stand and eat and occasionally spring away from the younger cats. They look terrible... here's Cloudy:

..and Boots:

Beanie, however (originally christened String Bean), manages to look distinguished in spite of his age:

It's good to be home.

Tomorrow I'm leaving for New Orleans. I have my Canon 30D, my Holga, my Mamiya C-330 TLR, loads of film. Got my maps and my voice recorder. I can't wait to roll through towns with names like Money, Ecru, Scooba, Good Thunder, Janice, and Yazoo City.

I've still got two weeks left to grapple with turning 25. Exciting things before I do: visiting Meredith in New Orleans; Matt visits the farm; I go to Maine with Georgia and Julia. The long hours of work this summer have been worth the wait.

I'll write more from Rome.

(Georgia.)

Happy Accidents

2007-07-25T20:24:00.000-05:00

Central Park...

Playland...

These are all quick scans... more to come soon.

Seeing the World Through a Plastic Lens

2007-07-11T21:13:00.000-05:00

Cross-processing is when you shoot slide film but have it processed as color negative. It gives you crazy, punchy color saturation, and when combined with a Holga (a plastic "toy" camera with no real settings to speak of, light leaks, and a plastic, blurry lens), the results can be fun. These are my first attempt at both, separately or combined. I took them during a week of chasing around 14 teenagers all over the city as part of a teen photo workshop I was helping teach. With a Holga it really it just point, click. No fuss.

Next month I'm taking a road trip to New Orleans, the kind of road trip where you load up your car with 5 different kinds of cameras and a whole mess of outdated film, tripods, lights, and oh yeah, some clothes and money, and set out to remember why you like taking pictures - because as nice as it is to be making money with it on a regular, increasing basis from people who want you to lend them your eye, that wasn't it originally.

Not that there's anything wrong with all the stuff I've been shooting lately. I'm up to my eyes in raw files needing to be "cooked", but here's some recent actually finished stuff. A wedding in Rhode Island...

(Thank you, Portrait Simple... I may have mastered the cute kid shot. Not that it's that difficult.)

A bat mitzvah in Boston...

And of course, you remember my friends Adam and Ian... you can see the rest of their wedding photos here, on Adam's Flickr site.

I'm never really caught up. There are still boxes piled around me, though only a couple left now. Order is overrated.... right?

The Postman Always Walks Up

2007-06-24T15:06:00.000-05:00

Still retrieving everyday belongings from half-unpacked boxes around the perimeter of rooms, and seeing each other perhaps less than we did when we lived separately, Matt and I have yet to receive mailbox keys, window screens, or a smoke alarm - but in spite of the details that have resulted from June being a most chaotic month, we are very happy in our charming 5th floor apartment on, as certain locals call it, "The Avenue".

Yesterday the mailman (postal worker) brought our mail all the way up to our door, since he knew it was taking a while to get our keys and noticed the mail piling up. We were touched and felt formally welcomed to the building.

Unfortunately time hasn't lent itself to writing lately... the little time left over from working has been spent sitting and collecting my thoughts. July will be slower. August holds some travels. The fall feels like it's about 5 minutes away.

Move-in, Take-out

2007-06-10T15:33:00.001-05:00

Little Ditties and Such

2007-06-06T18:11:00.000-05:00

Anyone know the easiest way to host/stream a basic mp3 file here? And/or video?

Jessie and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Night

2007-05-25T06:49:00.000-05:00

On my way into the studio yesterday after dropping off film at the lab, I found a crisp $5 bill just outside the South Station T entrance. Lunch money! It was a good sign that this week is on the incline.

It didn't start out so bad, at first, even in spite of the soggy, freezing weather. There was the getting locked out of my apartment Sunday morning and having to break in, which was easy, which was good - until it occurred to me that it's alarmingly easy to break into my apartment. There was the working at the studio til 11:30pm trying to do all the impossible things my job demands. There was a nice interlude of having a beer with Matt at the bar in the basement of our new building, but then there was the losing of his keys upon reaching his house at 12:30am. We were quite the pair, that day, with the key losing.

I was still in decent spirits, but it didn't end there. We tried the back staircase, and for better or worse Matt's apartment that night was pretty secure, so we called the roommates. Straight to voicemail, both of them. We cringingly rang the bell and waited, then rang again - no one home. Shit.

I should have just called a friend in Cambridge then and crashed on their couch; I'd given up my bed because Kim's family was in town for the night, a stopover after a weekend wedding somewhere. But I called and woke her, and told her we were coming, and she of course said no problem - we could stay on the sofa bed in the living room, and her family would all be up and out by 7:15am, anyway (great). So we hopped in a cab.

Which got a flat tire on the Mass Ave bridge.

By this point I was amused. The driver, although he didn't feel it necessary to interrupt his phone conversation to inform us of anything going on, finally got us another cab, which delivered us penniless to my apartment, where we snuck in like little mice and crawled, exhausted, into the sofa bed, no sheets or anything.

...Did I say little mice? Well, one little actual mouse decided to pull a wild all-nighter in our kitchen (which, I should illustrate, is for all intensive purposes IN the living room), streaking from one side of the room to the other, crunching on some stuff, doing some mouse aerobics. We reset the friendly traps and squeezed pillows to our ears, trying to drown it out.

You'd think it was over, right? Mm-mm... it was a really bad night.

Once we'd tuned out the energetic mouse, Kim got a stomach bug, something that had been going around at the wedding she attended. So every half hour or so she'd creep around our bed and into the bathroom on the opposite side of the wall to do her thing.

No fun was had by anyone. Kim, additionally, had to report for jury duty at 8am.

Anyone else have a rough time with the Sunday/Monday transition? Rachel did, and I know of a couple others. I'm wondering if the cosmos had a flat cosmic tire or something. I should point out that we caught the mouse in the wee hours, and it proceeded to throw its body against the walls of the Hav-a-Heart until we gave it a lift outside.

But like I said: things are on the upswing. I found some money, work is going well, I have interns, I hung out with my photographer friend Judy and her boyfriend and a friend of theirs in Southie last night, it's Friday and I don't have a shoot tomorrow, the weather's nice, the list goes on. I feel any karmic slight I must have made has been forgiven.

I'm still walking with one eye cast over my shoulder, though. You can't be too careful when the universe is in a pissy mood.

Go Ahead, Pile On!

2007-05-22T14:33:00.001-05:00

Sorry for the lack of activity. Between being way behind on my own editing, and trying to handle someone else's business on top of it, I've let the blog slide. Here's a tiny morsel for now - the Oberlin group photo from Adam and Ian's wedding. Even as I was setting up the shot I wasn't ready for the sheer number of us.

Grab it while you can, kids, and look for it in the Alumni Notes.

The Verdict is In, and it's Oh So Fine.

2007-05-10T16:16:00.000-05:00

I'd love to be able to show you more from last weekend's wedding, but in addition to being insanely busy, I wound up with jury duty. And got seated. On a criminal case. Which, fortunately, is compelling and complex enough to keep me awake all day.

But I do have just a couple, until I can get to the rest. Look at my beautiful friends.

The Event Queen

2007-05-03T18:59:00.000-05:00

I find myself shooting a lot of events lately. A wonderfully nerdaliscious science festival this past weekend, weddings here and there, a groundbreaking ceremony for a new theater, political stuff. It's good work and if I'm lucky, the people there are interesting and off-guard.

I guess what isn't an event, though, when you think about it?

(From the science festival...)

(From the previously mentioned theater opening, which was followed by a parade.)

A few nights ago Matt and I dusted off some actual film cameras and loaded them up with high-speed film from my 'fridge (which may be the only thing in my fridge that actually belongs to me), grabbed a tripod, and headed into Downtown Crossing for some night photography. I mostly concentrated on tops of buildings there, and dim sources of light from basement shops. I haven't developed the film yet, but once I do, I'm going to get back into the darkroom to print it. I can't wait. I need to work on something I can actually touch, and push myself away a little from keyboard commands and a backlit monitor.

Unfortunately this blog doesn't have much direction lately apart from posting a few recent photos and sharing rather mundane details of life. I haven't had much time for introspection, but even as I say that, it seems like a lame excuse. Because what's the point of sharing anything - of doing anything - if you're not doing it consciously and thoughtfully?

So I'm thinking of going in a new direction. Spending less time mindlessly throwing stuff up on the blog, and more time working on long-term photographic projects and professional endeavors, posting little vignettes that having nothing to do with my daily life, but depict something of interest to me. I'm just getting sick of reading my own stuff, and I need a change of venue.

One thing I did want to leave you with was images from the portrait party from way back when... the idea was to evoke some element of yourself from those days of school portraits. It was funny - Melissa did the school cafeteria thing where somebody's about to get in trouble and everybody goes, "Oooooohhhhhhhhhh....."

Meredith, who knows about these things because she is a teacher, did the obligatory eye roll:

...and then giggled:

Laura got a little overwhelmed by the hot lights:

Jamie and Marie managed to look both intimidatingly cool and mildly confused:

And Matt, well, Matt was in rather rare form that night anyway. He'd arrived from a post-game bar brawl with a guy twice his size, which is shocking as he is usually very gentle... anyway, he was feeling a little punk rock.

Nice.

You Want to Step Outside?

2007-04-27T17:16:00.000-05:00

This sad little guy was right outside the studio the other day, plastered by the wind against a bunch of bicycles.

Pretty soon Central Square will be my new stomping grounds for both work and home. We found a beautiful, sunny apartment over a fantastic restaurant/bar right on "the Avenue" for relatively cheap, and move in late June. Anyone know anyone looking for a room in the South End?

Last night I had my own hotel room in a cottage in the Berkshires - not that I really got to enjoy it. We drove in just before dusk to get a very particular kind of light - you know that point in the evening when the sky and everything it lights turns kind of cobalt, and any street lamps or lit windows by contrast are the most vibrant orange? That's what we were going for, and managed, I think, to capture. We went out for dinner with the client yesterday (sushi again), and I got to bed around 11:30, only to have to pry myself from bed at 5:30 to hit the road back to Boston. That's a tough turnaround for a sleepy girl.

The postcards came, which is exciting... but they're about two shades darker than I'd anticipated, despite my fancy calibration. Not awful, though. Now I've got to find 500 people to send 'em to.

The photoshoots keep coming regardless. Here are a couple shots from the church shoot I did last week...

And tomorrow I'm shooting an event for the Cambridge Science Festival at the Strata Center, the Frank Gehry building at MIT that I've always wanted to check out. A week after that (gasp!) is Adam and Ian's wedding. I am wishin' and hopin' and thinkin' and prayin' for sun on that beautiful grassy hilltop in front of the big Oak tree. But, you know, a well-diffused, softly lit, not-too-bright sun. Not to be picky.

You know what's tough? Watching someone whose art you admire suffer an inspiration drought, and feeling like it's your job, if not entirely your responsibility, to guide them to the proverbial water. It's especially tough when you sort of stop being able to see your own work in a creative light, because it's becoming so second nature and you sometimes forget to color outside the lines.

My first plan of action is a field trip. Possibilities for the hijacking next week are the Griffin Museum in Winchester, or maybe the new ICA, or maybe some interesting films. If our own work isn't doing it for us, by golly, we're gonna go feast our eyes on someone else's.

(Rocking a little Mary Jane Watson comic book action. Good thing my boyfriend already looks like Peter Parker.)

Isolation is a Beast

2007-04-19T15:51:00.000-05:00

You know how when you've got the perfect stretch of time in front of you to accomplish all the things you always put off, if you're not in the right state of mind then getting even a fraction of that shit done can feel like... like... like trying to build an anthill when you're the only ant on the job and all the other ants are at a picnic somewhere having fun while you're building the anthill.

...I don't know.

The last four days have been weird. I've been in the studio alone because my boss is on vacation with his fam, and while I've got a few actual job-related tasks to do here and there, my main mission has been to bring us a smidge closer to some sense of order in this huge, disorganized, chock-full-of-crap place. I've pulled stacks of lab invoices from 2003 from behind light tables, recycled magazines lauding products laughably obsolete. I keep getting distracted when I pull out some old job of a person I didn't know he'd photographed, which reminds me of trying to clean my room and getting distracted reading old journals. Most strikingly, though... I haven't really talked to anybody. A few short phone conversations, a couple check-ins with Mark, but... otherwise, my iPod is keeping me company and sometimes I sing along. By the end of the evening when I finally DO have to talk to people, I'm about as articulate as a broom.

And I'm compulsively checking my email and the news and Google Reader. It's depressing. My dad always says 6% of people are addicted to the internet. I'd say the number's way higher, and I'm definitely among them. I need to detox.

Yesterday I got an email about a photo gig (my own job, not a job for Mark), and I forwarded it to Matt, along with a little personal note about the depressing weather and needing him to cheer me up. Nothing terribly interesting. Except... that... I hit Reply. I used the term "babe" in an email to a very nice Episcopalian woman asking me to photograph her service's one-year anniversary. It was mortifying. But in retrospect, it could have been WAY worse. Everything I said was pretty innocuous. I called her right away in desperation, and fortunately she laughed at my mistake and was very cool about it. Anyway, this is what being alone all day does to me! Makes me a person who makes that kind of mistake! Usually I am not that person!

Ugh.

On a lighter note... I have to share a moment I had recently, when Meredith was visiting a couple weeks ago and we went out to JP to see Georgia and Melissa and hear about Georgia's trip to Eastern Europe. We were standing around in the kitchen, about to order Indian food for dinner, and Meredith and Georgia were catching up on their jobs, and someone pointed out that the four of us, just a few years out of college and still solidly in our mid-twenties, are all doing what we want to be doing, and doing it pretty well. Georgia and Melissa both have amazing, challenging, powerful jobs in progressive politics that all their years of incredibly hard work and smarts have gotten them; Meredith is finishing up her second year as a teacher of reading and writing to third and fourth graders in New Orleans, a place where it really matters, and finding immense reward in it; and I, well, I get to play with cameras pretty much all day. I was pretty damn proud of us all. And that was just those of us who happened to be in the room right then; I've got an impressive list of friends who are kicking ass in the world and basically living out their professional dreams (like Sanden, for example, whose MPR podcasts you should check out).

Okay. One more hour, and then I'm off to a shoot that came from that email yesterday. It's a really good thing I didn't say anything out of line in that email... it's better not to offend people when you're trying to get work.

Leaps of Joy

2007-04-16T19:46:00.000-05:00

Well, that stinks. Leave it to me to advise other people never to compose their blog entries actually on their blog, lest the internet crash unexpectedly or the power blink, and then to go ahead and write a long entry about my amazing day last Friday and lose the whole thing. Damn it. From now on I'm always composing in Word.

The gist was this: had a shoot with Mark in New Haven, publicity shots for concert painist, snuck into dangerous construction site, frolicked amongst rubble for hours in wind and cold, got treated to sushi dinner, learned pianist's incredible life story, love my job. But it was much better written.

Yesterday I met with my good friends Adam and Ian to discuss the details of their wedding, which I'm shooting in Western Mass next month. After the business stuff, we goofed off in the studio for a while. I'm not thrilled with my lighting job here, but A & I are cute as bugs. Which means really freaking cute.

Here's me and the boys...

Rachel and Jesse stopped by then, and things got a little... well...

I love my job.

Other news: I might be moving to Cambridge. Which would make me happy to leave a crappy landlord and move closer to where I spend all my time, sad to leave a wonderful roommate/friend and amazing apartment that took a lot of work.

Also, improvements are in place for jgkphotography.com, as well as postcards being printed now and in the mail soon. If you know of anyone who might want to hire me and who should receive a postcard, drop me a comment and I'll get right on it.

Global What?

2007-04-11T21:50:00.000-05:00

What I'd like to know is... where is this so-called Spring?

It calls for snow tomorrow. After spending Easter weekend in Buffalo, and a Passover seder in Westchester before that, I've seen enough of that mess.

'Tis the season of hiding out, but there's no time for that. (Thanks to Rachel for the visuals.)

***

I shot a wedding reception last Friday... I don't want to post too much yet, but here are a couple of my favorites. And, believe it or not, the least incriminating.

S'all for now. If you need me, I'll be up to my nose in down, 'til the weather comes around.

Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most

2007-04-02T08:27:00.000-05:00

It's broken umbrella season, folks: occasional sideways rain-snow, misleadingly decadent sunny days followed by skin-prickling cold, wind that slams into you like a rude Bostonian trying to get to Fenway Pahk, etc., etc., etc.

Fortunately, though, things are going really well here. My job is amazing, and even though my back is like an overplayed accordion from all the equipment carrying I do, and sometimes the stress makes me just sit down and laugh, I've learned more in the past two months than I can barely contain it all in my head. There's definitely some direction in my life that wasn't there a year ago.

I've been getting hooked up with great freelance jobs over the last several weeks, through my own incredible connections and friends. And I haven't really started doing much marketing yet: once I actually start trying to find more work, I'm hoping to propel myself a little closer to a decent paycheck. So I can, you know, eat (kidding - I eat just fine). Or buy a new lens once in a while. Thanks for your votes, by the way. JGKphotography.com it is. I have to redesign the whole thing soon. Stay posted for new stuff.

I'm off to New York for Passover, and Meredith gets to come with me. We're off to catch the train. Stay dry. Be good. Buy an umbrella with some serious spine.

And if you manage to come into some, share your apples.

Indecision City: Don't Go Alone!

2007-03-27T12:01:00.000-05:00

Help me decide, will you?

If you choose "Something else altogether," drop me a comment and suggest something. I'm making new business cards with my new number on them, and I can't choose a site name!

Thanks for the help.

I Love a (Slightly Bigoted, Overtly Alcoholic) Parade!

2007-03-21T11:30:00.000-05:00

Just wanted to share some images from the South Boston St. Patrick's Day Parade, which Kim and I attended despite the frigid weather and intermittent snow. My wedding photographer friend Judy hosted an awesome brunch in her studio, so when our fingers and toes got too numb we could escape inside for warmth, food, and music. It was a good Southie time. I managed not to have to see anyone vomit (and only had to step around it Saturday night), which is nice.

I love parades dearly, but I went to this one without the warmth in my heart that they usually provide. While I understand that it's frustrating when a celebration gets co-opted by groups that have nothing to do with its original intent, I have trouble feeling all gushy about a parade that stops taking public funds solely for the right to exclude any group they want to, namely gay people. And whose founders felt so strongly about the matter that they took it to the Supreme Court. And won.

I don't know. I just wasn't as into it.

...But not to ruin your fun. Here we go!

Check out this stand-off between photographer and Jedi, or whatever this guy is.

After a while, I felt like every photo had been done before... so I started concentrating on feet marching.

And just a few more... this is Susan Passoni, a city council candidate whose photos I did a couple weeks ago. It was cool to get handed a piece of campaign literature and think, Hey! I did those photos!

Other people were campaigning as well:

A sidelong glance:

And my awesome host, Judy, who kept introducing me to people as HER assistant.

Lots more where those came from. For more photos from the parade, click here.

After the parade, Kim and I cleaned house.

After which I started playing around with my macro lens.

Which is when I discovered that you could see the cityscape in my eye, through the fire escape out my back window. See?

Okay, now see?

Cool.

***

In other news, I finally got around to visiting the Frog Pond a couple of weeks ago, and leave it to the kid from Buffalo who's a huge hockey fan to need skating advice from the North Carolina girl.

Actually, neither of us fell on our bums and we dizzied ourselves going around and around on the tiny rink to hits from the '70s, '80s, and '90s.

It was one of those beautiful, oddly warm late-winter days when you barely need your coat. I'm not sure where those went, but this is the time of year I start to get a little desperate to be warm. I'm even looking forward to the inevitable blustery Boston spring that'll leave broken umbrellas strewn across the city for me to photograph. It's a great excuse to wear my red rubber boots.

Post Script: Anniversary Season

2007-03-16T08:17:00.000-05:00

As of yesterday, Boston's been my home for 2 years, and what a better way to celebrate than St. Patrick's Day Parade in South Boston? Judy, the wedding photographer I've assisted, has invited me to a brunch party in her street-level studio to watch the fun on Sunday, so expect pictures early next week.

A Long Way Gone, A Long Way Come

2007-03-15T20:26:00.000-05:00

First of all: did I miss a meeting? Why has everyone slowed their blogging down so suddenly? Have we found some other means of blatant self-absorbsion I should know about?

Speaking of which, it's another long-ass day here in photographer's assistant/studio manager world, after racing to a press junket to photograph M*rk Wh*lb*rg to no avail because the press credentials didn't include photographers. But I saw ol' Marky Mark in the lobby as he came in, and we caught eyes and I managed to smile. I think it was a smile.

Yesterday I went to see my college Creative Writing workshop classmate Ishmael Beah read from his new book, A Long Way Gone. I should mention that Ishmael and his book leapt to #2 on the New York Times bestseller list for hardback nonfiction. And that I first found out he'd finished the book (of which I remember workshopping chapters in college) by opening the Sunday Times a couple of months back and finding his (very attractive) face on the cover of the New York Times Magazine. Funny, how you stumble across old friends. (Do you like how he went from classmate to friend in the blink of a bestseller?)

Ishmael and I had the same advisor during our four years at Oberlin, and took several workshop classes together. In addition to being an eloquent and deft writer, I remember him as being sort of the epitome of a good guy, and not half-bad to look at, either. Dan Chaon, our advisor, says there's no more deserving person than Ishmael for this success, and I was so proud to be there in the crowd in Somerville as he read and handled questions. When I said hello, he asked me if I was still writing, and with some amount of relief I said I wasn't. Because how do you compete with #2 on the bestseller list? Besides, I mean, being #1.

I'm reading the book now, and last night I rolled for hours with nightmares, not of rebels in Sierra Leone, but of intruders of all kinds - in my apartment, in my parents' farmhouse, in the woods as I ran and threw myself in ditches to hide. My nightmares are self-fabricated, induced from Ishmael's documented real ones. Read the book. Maybe in the daylight. Okay, cue the Reading Rainbow music: "But don't take my word for it..." Watch John Stewart fall all over Ishmael here.

Who wouldn't be blown away by a human like this? Makes you want to step it up a notch, in whatever way that means to you. Which I'm pretty sure is his greatest success of all.