My Year in Provence

This is a hard post to write. I have such a flood of emotions looking back, reflecting on what I have learned, how I have grown, and what I have loved. You can not recap a year’s experience without ending it with what is next? To be honest, I don’t know. Sure, I thought I would come to spend a year in Provence and answer all the questions for myself about my life, about who I am and what I want. I can certainly answer now some of these things but other aspects have grown even more confusing. I loved things I never thought I could love like living in the country. I learned things about myself I never knew. For example, I am an introvert which finally explains why I hate talking on the phone, why people who are upset or angry give me anxiety attacks, why I feel so exhausted after social events, and most importantly, why I work so much better alone. So where does that take me next when I come back to the United States? 

It was shocking when I first arrived. Nothing seemed to be possible, from getting boxes delivered to buying food on a Sunday… or any time after 7pm. I missed all the things about New York I took for granted. 24/7 Uber service for instance. There is ONE Uber guy and he lives and hour from my little town. I am ecstatic when my train pulls into Avignon and he’s on the clock. I missed laundry service. The last time I took a linen shirt to be pressed they estimated a turn around time of two weeks… lol. So I got used to wrinkles. I missed Seamless, something which I never even think about now. The pleasure I derive in cooking is to the point of therapy. The access to organic, AFFORDABLE, locally farmed ingredients here puts the US to a great shame. I will never forget my first trip to the farmer’s market. Alone with only a handful of French words, I was terrified. I paid for everything with 20’s because I didn’t understand the amounts, and I was used to New York City farmer’s market prices, until I discovered how incredibly inexpensive everything was. Then I walked into the wine shop and my jaw really hit the ground. When it is not market day in my town or one of the surround villages, I have four bio (organic) grocers I can walk to. I know their names, what is happening in their life, who is having a baby and who is in the hospital. I am, for once, part of a community and I feel physically part of the earth here. 

I learned to live a life with less noise. My days in Provence are filled mostly with cooking, cleaning, and making photographs and those are the days when I am most happy. I found freedom. Above everything I learned, I discovered true freedom. Freedom exists beyond the ability to choose where you live or what you believe. I found freedom in my art and expression. I found freedom from money. Of course, we all need money to survive but they don’t worship it here in France and it’s amazing how much your stress levels dissolve when that’s not the goal to life. I’m really into being free from plastics and logos and that has brought down the noise in my life in the best way. I loved the freedom from a culture that tells woman how we are supposed to look. I loved being free from what society tells me I should be doing like having children and a corporate job so I have health insurance. I loved the freedom from ‘stuff’. I never had to walk outside my door and be reminded of all the ‘stuff’ I don’t have that I supposedly need to in order to be valuable. The value comes from within – in my mind, in my soul and if I can create something of meaning. I wish I had more time to work on these ideas. Time, I have come to find out, is the most valuable thing we have. 

To quote the French philosopher Albert Camus who lived in Lourmarin not far from me, “The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.” 

Of course, these are just some of the many thoughts and experiences I have garnered in my year here. I slowed down on sharing (blogging) to take the time to be present and experience. I imagine when I return to the US I will begin editing and posting so many of the stories I have filled up 5 hard drives with. There is so much to sift through and my heart has been on a roller coaster. This week has been especially though as I try to figure out where I belong in the world and what value I have for an American culture. 

I created a self portrait to mark the year anniversary as part of my #ProvenceSelfPortraitSeries inspired by Jan van Eyck’s “The Arnolfini Portrait“. This is a great short video on the piece from one of my favorite YouTube art channels. I loved that this was a “painting of everyday life” as much of my personal work here in Provence has been a celebration of the day to day things. What is in bloom, what is in season, what bug crawls into the window, how the light is today.

Beyond that, I wanted to explain some of the personal symbolism I added into this photographic rendition that pertains to my own experience at this year mark. First, there is meaning in the absences. The absence of furniture is symbolic of feeling unsettled, homeless. I brought in chairs, tables, daybeds and pushed them back out. I feel at home in Provence in my soul, yet I do not have a home. I left the shadow of the table with a bowl of pears cast along the left edge to show there is life that happens in this space. I planned to bring in a newly born kitten from town as I love all the cats that roam my village and have earned their trust but then I felt the absence of the pet represented my life more. As many of you know who follow me on Instagram stories, I DREAM of having pets. Both women wear green gowns by Loup Charmant (left & right) in green, green being a symbol of hope. My hope that this path I am on will lead me to where I belong. The hope that I can do something with this work I have created in Provence. The woman on the right holds her gown close to her chest, representing holding everything dear to me I have learned in Provence. The only real valuable thing I can take with me when I go. Her slippers are on because it is time for her to leave. She looks back, sorrowfully to the woman on the left, sometimes I feel my heart being ripped out when I think about having to leave this place. Originally, I had taken a photographic plate with tear stained cheeks but felt the expression was enough on its own. The woman on the left is turned to be ‘looking back’, reflecting on her time in Provence. Her slippers are off and she is barefoot to represent feeling at home here. She gestures with her hand in the way of a ‘blessing’, feelings blessed from this time in France. Though they are married together, in the sense as one, their hands rest together open, vulnerable of being torn apart. The inscription on the wall is my signature and dated for my one year. Hanging above them in an antique mirror which I borrowed from a shop in town, hides a third self portrait. The real me, the photographer. I stand in my men’s linen suit with my camera on the tripod. You can see a discarded green dress on the table, my phone in the bottom left which I use to create these self portraits as a remote control to my camera. I am standing in the kitchen which is pretty much where I always am while at home either working or cooking. You can see the large French doors that over look my garden and her ripened fig tree. 

I will be here a bit longer. I have some more personal work I need to do before I go and a few professional jobs on the table. So there is some time to ponder what happens next…

August Still Life

I was in a bit of a creative block today.

I have so many things I want to photograph and create that at times I find it overwhelming. On top of that, when I do create work that I feel really satisfied with I have this moment of pride and joy and then the terror of oh God, what am I going to do next? To take a photograph is one aspect of photography, to make a photograph is another. Making a photograph, a process I have been sharing in more and more detail on my Instagram stories, requires a harmony of light, technical knowledge, talent and what feels like a billion…painful…gut wrenching decisions. Sometimes when I’m starting out my day setting up the camera I can feel paralyzed with the daunting amount of decisions that are ahead. Internal monolog: “What’s the theme today, what do I want to communicate, what prop do I want to use, what do I have lying around, what is missing, what does it need, where should the shadows fall, which lens, which aperture, should their be one petal…two… five… ten?… maybe turned a hair to the left, no get rid of them all. God, what I did yesterday was so much better. Did I just peak?…” For example.

A few times the past few months I’ve given in and continued my series on the history of Versailles in an attempt to bury my head in a pillow. But most days I just take a deep breathe and try to quiet my mind down to one thing. Just start with one thing. That’s my best advice for anyone stuck with where to begin, with what to photograph. I have found that once I get my camera set up, choose that one thing (today I started with plums) the wheels start turning and one thing leads to another, as it does in life, and voila! You are on the move making the decisions that were so crippling moments before. The one thing doesn’t have to be a prop either, or subject matter, you can start with just say a lens. I’m going to shoot with my macro lens. You make that first decision and then that leads to the next and so on. Other times I have just started with a spot of beautiful light raking across the floor, well the floor was dirty so I covered it, then I found something I had lying around that could play in the light and I was off to the races.

This still life started with plums and ended with a concept around an Autumn harvest, a sort of chaotic cornucopia which is a pretty accurate representation of where my mind was today. I raided my fruit bowls, tore apart my bouquets and foraged for more figs from the garden. Then, in one of the ways photography can truly become magical, a bee flew in the windows and landed right in my still life and I was once again, satisfied. 

Old School Photography

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Perhaps the most meaningful personal shoot of the year comes every December. We sit down and talk about what the year meant and how to capture that in a photograph. How to express where we were at that time. I shoot the annual Ann Street Studio holiday card photograph in the same format each year, on a 4×5 film camera with black and white Ilford film.

This year’s image crossed continents twice from start to finish. It begins in France, taken in the afternoon light of Provence with flowers I bought at my little town’s Saturday farmer’s market. After I framed the flowers just so, I used two magazines to manipulate and block the natural light of part of the background and on some of the arrangement while the shutter stayed opened for 30seconds. I shot somewhere around 15 plates with variations on lighting and exposures then packed them up and brought the sheets of film back to New York with me to be hand processed at LTI.

As always, I took the processed film and contact sheets to my favorite darkroom lab in Boston which I pilgrimage to every winter and spent two days hand printing the set of 200 on Ilford warm tone fiber base paper.

I brought the final 200 back to France with me and spent days by the window light addressing each one, some with added personal notes, to be mailed out all over the world. It is a long process but one that brings me great joy in a digital age. To give someone a physical object you made with your heart, soul and abilities is like having a small piece of me in your home. The sense of pride I feel when people send me photos of the image framed in their home makes me feel grateful that I am a photographer. However, for the most part I don’t know what people do with them. I like to imagine someone using one as a bookmark to later discover again years from now. I like to fantasize a child or grandchild will come across one decades from now in an old box and feel a connection to me or at least to who I once was. They don’t have to know me personally but I hope they know my work.

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A Photographer’s Gift Guide

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I love photography. I love giving and receiving the gifts of photography and what freedoms those items serve to create, to be inspired, to think about photographs in a more meaningful way. These tools, ever changing, are an important part of being a photographer, professional or hobbyist. While I haven’t come anywhere close to owning every photography book or testing every camera I can share with you what I personally have loved and think would be great for anyone interested in the art of capturing life.

Cameras

Sony a7RII: Perfectly small, amazing quality, this is my go-to travel camera. Because you can connect the camera to the app on your phone you can instantly upload photos to put onto instagram or as I have been doing for these self portraits, using it as a remote shutter release. These are the accessories I love to use with it:

Impossible I-1 Analog Instant Camera: As a huge lover of photography dating back pre-digital era I am always keeping up with my vintage film and polaroid cameras, a dying tool I try to preserve in my arsenal of gear and knowledge. I was thrilled with Impossible released a new version of an old instant polaroid camera so modernized you can control and shoot with in from an app on your phone… as you can tell I’m a fan of remote shooting. The photos this camera creates are soft, dreamy and otherworldly and fit right into my vision of the world.

*FYI, giving away TWO of these later this week! Follow on instagram for the announcement!*

 

Canon 5D series: I have been shooting with the Canon 5D series for around 7 years and it has honestly been the best professional camera experience I’ve had. I’ve used this camera to shoot ad campaigns, fashion editorials, images for brand Zines and brand lookbooks, all my NYFW coverage, brand travel stories and so many other … pretty… little… things.

I started out with the Canon 5D Mark II and now shoot with the Mark III. They recently released the Mark IV which I myself have my eye on. Did you know, we created our first Cineamgraph with the Canon 5D Mark II because of it’s capability of also capturing high quality video! These are the accessories I love to use with it:

 

Gear

Gitzo Tripods: I’m 100% loyal to Gitzo tripods. I’ve been using them since college, I believe they are the best. For travel and in Provence I have been using the Gitzo GT0532 Mountaineer Tripod which is perfect size to carry around easily, fits into my duffel for travel, and is light weight while still insanely sturdy. On the head I use a Gitzo Series 3 GH3780QD Center Ball Head which is absolutely my favorite way to shoot on a tripod. Back at the studio we use a Gitzo Series 5 Systematic 3 Section Long Tripod. This is a very heavy duty piece of gear and holds our bigger cameras such as the Red Epic, Pentax 645z and my large format film cameras typically with a Manfrotto 502 fluid head.

MYDigitalSSD 512GB: Super tiny, super fast and affordable SSD hard drive for location shooting.

LaCie Rugged Mini 2TB drive: Our go-to higher capacity drive, great for backups. Also comes in 1TB and 4TB.

iCloth Screen Cleaning Wipes: Your camera screen gets smudged, your phone has fingerprints all over it. Keep a few of these in your camera bag for a quick clean up.

 

Camera Straps

Photojojo Handy Dandy Hand Strap: I’ve had this one strap for years on my Canon. I love it because it’s padded and sturdy for a camera of this size. It’s so warn in now from all we’ve been through the leather has turned a beautiful patina and at $40 you can’t beat it. *see above camera and strap on far right in the top image*

Gordy’s Camera Straps: This is what I have attached on my Sony a7RII. More delicate, minimal, lighter but still solid leather quality, I’m absolutely loving it. And, they are made to order so you can decide what color leather and stitching matches your personality best. Oh did I mention, they start at $18!

Wood & Faulk Neck Strap:  Another strap I’ve had for years, this is the only neck strap I use. I like the extra width for the pressure on your neck or shoulder while maintaining a nice simplicity of design. The leather has worn beautifully, something that will last forever. Comes in tan, dark brown, and natural.

Camera Bags

Billingham 550: If you were to buy one camera bag for your entire life this would be the one. This is my camera bag, this will always be my camera bag and though it’s a splurge it’s also forever.

ONA: Made in New York City, this is a more fashionable approach than your traditional camera bag. From cool backpacks to women’s handbags, they keep your style intact and your gear safe.

Pelican Case: This is for when I mean serious business. There is nothing cool or chic about the way this case looks but when I’m traveling on a big job, carrying a lot of valuable gear, it’s typically too heavy for a shoulder bag and I wanted everything to be as secure as possible. I like that I can roll this through airports, it can stack with luggage and I can put a lock on it for security. It also doubles as a great apple box on location when you need to stand on something to give you a little more height!

Sachtler SC306 Camera backpack: Our backpack for video gear. It’s big, but not big enough that it weighs a ton when full. It fits in overhead compartments on airplanes, has a slim pocket for a laptop and enough room for all the camera bodies and lenses you need. It also stands upright which is a lot more useful than you might imagine.

Photography Books

At Work by Annie Leibovitz: An amazing behind the scenes account by one of the most famous photographers of our time on her career, photoshoots and how some of her most famous images came to light.

Peter Lindbergh: A Different Vision on Fashion Photography: One of my favorite photographers, this book is a beautiful collection of four decades of some of the most iconic fashion photographs in history in his signature black and white. I also love Untitled 116 and Images of Women.

Blood Sweat and Tears by Bruce Weber: An amazing retrospective of one of the greatest American fashion photographers of all time with his beautifully candid and so Americana imagery. The perfect coffee table book that keeps you inspired time after time.

Tim Walker: Story Teller: For those who see the world as a magical place… this is the picture book to end all. For those young creatives with imagination just starting out, Tim Walker Pictures, offers a glimpse into the artistic process.

Herb Ritts: L.A. Style: Some of the most beautiful black and white photographs of fashion, nudes and celebrities the world has ever seen by L.A. photographer Herb Ritts famous for his striking simplicity and powerful natural light imagery. The Golden Hour is a more intimate look into the journey of the photographer himself.

Passage: A Work Record by Irving Penn: One of my all time favorite photography books, this covers all aspects of Irving Penn’s work from fashion to portraits, to his iconic still lives you see hanging on museum walls.

Hold Still by Sally Mann: An intimate dive into the personal history and life of photographer Sally Mann and how that plays out into her esteemed body of work in this interesting memoir.

Edward Weston: 125 Photographs: Containing some of the most striking nudes and still lives in the history of photography, this book is a timeless tribute to the quiet vision of a master photographer.

Imogen Cunningham 1883 – 1976: One of the most prominent women in the history of photography and a pioneer of photography in her own right, this book is a beautiful collection of her most striking photographs from portraiture to flowers.

On Photography by Susan Sontag: A marriage of ideals between the history of photography and what was happening culturally in America in the 1970s that still hits poignant moments relevant to today’s digital society.

Above self portrait taken at my home in Provence with a few of my favorite cameras wearing Of A Kind Permanent Collection and Retrouvai Heirloom Signet Ring in an image inspired by a Francesco Furini painting.

Studied.

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I was watching the U.S. Presidential debate live last night, in bed with a glass of red wine, around 4am French time. As I listened to Hillary Clinton speak (looking chic as F in Ralph Lauren, IMO) I was so impressed with how knowledgable and studied she is. Dedicating your life to anything, especially in her case of public service for 30 years, is a huge statement to passion, purpose and incredible knowledge on the subject. I was contemplating how that related to my own purpose.

Change makers start by first learning, then with doing. The power is in knowledge. The expertise is in experience. That’s what I took away. If you have been following my Snapchat this week I have been sharing what I’ve learned about photography. Quick little daily tutorials on knowledge I’ve gained either in the class room or from experience in my breathe thus far as a photographer which is and will be my life’s work.

On Photography

My journey started when I was 13. My mom handed me her 1970s Pentax 35mm film camera. The kind that is so basic and manual all you can do set the shutter and aperture. A far cry from the endless options and controls we now have with digital.

My first lessons in photography started with basic balancing of the camera’s built in light meter and a LOT of trial and error. I learned quickly that I like to overexpose my images by a stop, especially when shooting faces. I learned how slow I can set the shutter before the image begins to reveal the shake from my hand, or breathing. I learned how to communicate movement, not just freeze it. This is knowledge I still use today when I want the image to feel alive. From there I read books, I took every class I could for the next 10 or so years. Post college, I still study. I watch youtube videos, I take classes in alternative photography, I buy random cameras and learn how to shoot with them. I play, experiment, challenge myself and discuss daily.

The Continued Study

I’ve studied photography. I loved photography. I still love the history of photography, btw THIS is the best podcast on the subject. We are now all photographers. We all take pictures, communicate through imagery and share with the world. For those of you who want to make it a profession… take a lead from what inspired me about Hillary. Be studied, do the work. Take your time on the journey. Here I am 20 years later and I am still doing just that. She makes me excited for who I will become as an artist (and business woman) in the later years of my life.

Please, this is not a political post but one about being inspired about another human’s knowledge and commitment to what they belive in, if you belive in it with them or not… #ImWithHer

Above self portrait, in Baukjen dress & wrap coat,

inspired from the painting “San Gerolamo” by Caravaggio

 

Old School Photography

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Each year, these prints are my little labor of love. This year’s holiday card began almost one year ago, at the beginning of 2015. While shooting a project for Tiffany & Co., we had the opportunity to rent a private helicopter to get aerial shots of Manhattan. I learned two things from that early winter morning ride: 1. I am deathly afraid of helicopters and 2. I wanted this year’s holiday card to be a print of my great love, New York City. Looking down on her from this birds eye view gave me a new visual sense of the layers of history in this city from which we build our own futures. I understood her in a new way and that’s what I wanted to capture.

Considering there is not enough Xanax in the world to get me in a helicopter again, I had to find a new strategy for shooting at this high but intimate angle. Though I love the views from the obvious choices—Empire State Building and Top of the Rock—they didn’t give me the towering sense I was seeking. From the tops of those iconic buildings, the city is dwarfed and dense, slightly out of reach. As luck would have it, our friends from The New Potato were hosting a party with Riviera Events on the 68th floor of the newly completed Four World Trade Center. It’s one of those moments in life where everything falls into place, as if designed by destiny. Here we are in the Financial District, where we work, standing in a building that is part of the present, looking down on the past. It was just what I wanted.

It was an incredibly difficult shot to take. Using a Linhof 4×5 film field camera, the cityscape was not bright enough to register on the ground glass where you do your framing and focus check. Only a few faint street lights were visible for me to use as a rough guide but for the most part I was shooting blind. This also applies to metering: I had no way of knowing if I would be right on the money or not, so I just applied what I knew about the sensitivity of film to light and my experience with it the past 19 years. The image that ultimately made the final print was a 5 minute exposure on Ilford Delta 400ISO film.

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After the image was captured, we packed up and headed to my favorite darkroom in Boston for printing (which made for a great 24 hour Snapchat story!)

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Triumph Lingerie

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My latest project with my frequent creative collaborator Kelly got a little more intimate this time around with a look at one of the oldest lingerie brands, founded in Europe in 1886, Triumph. This project was unlike most of our jobs in the digital age, these image were used in print first, layout designed by Kelly, to be picked up at Journelle stores and handed out at Triumph’s fashion show.

We wanted these images to be a celebration of women, to be feminine but confident, uncovered but in control. We wanted to be inspired at the end of the day to put on some lace and love every curve. Now, doesn’t that sound fun?

Below are our four women, full of their own Triumphs, all from different places in the world and celebrated beautifully in their own skin because confidence is the biggest triumph of all.

Nneoma

 

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 Above & in the cover photo Nneoma wears: Amourette Spotlight Underwire BraAmourette Spotlight Hipster panties

Below: Amourette 300 bra

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Penumbra Foundation

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A couple of weeks ago I attended a weekend workshop for the 2nd time at Penumbra Foundation, the center for alternative photography. The subject this time around was on the platinum palladium printing process, something which I had been wanting to learn for years. I am absolutely obsessed with what they are doing here and keeping alive the history of photography in a hands on approach. Actually, the reason THIS nude shoot finally happened though we had been talking about it for months, was because I wanted to take these classic female form shots into the darkroom specifically to be printed this way.

In addition to workshops, they also have a studio you can rent, darkrooms, a tintype studio, and lecture series.

Here are a few snapshots taken by new friends I made that weekend I asked if I could share with you all to see into the magic of Penumbra.

{above image by Carl Weese || below images by Tom Grill}

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The Female Nude

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I am a woman. I am aware of my body like any normal human being. It’s not a surprise, just look at the images served up to us. Everyone is beautiful, happy, young, thin… they have the perfect (insert your own personal thoughts here) stomach, eye brows, waist, legs, hips- sometimes it feels like an impossible treadmill of perfect we will never really achieve because of genetics, because we have real life and real work and can’t spend the amount of time it takes to achieve “perfection”.

But really, what is perfect?

I’ve always be interested in shooting nudes. I started in college. The body is one of the most beautiful, natural things about life. The way it changes, the way it gives life, the way each is our own and that is what makes us special. I wouldn’t take my grandmother’s wrinkles away, or Dad’s loving soft hugs, or seeing my sister-in-law’s body change carrying the amazing twins my family adores. I would not say that I have had body issues all my life, but as I’ve gotten older I had to learn to look in the mirror and teach myself to stop judging the way I look compared to other people.

As a photographer I look for what is photogenic from people to places to the design of a still life. I’m not going to lie, I love tall beautiful thin fashion models. They are like illustrations of illusions of an idea of who we think we are or could be. Fantasy is part of the fun, photographing that fantasy is one of the things that I love most.

However…

There is a place for curves too. Curves are incredible. When our model Jourdan walked in I was honestly first taken back by her personality. Her confidence. Confidence is the one of the greatest quality anyone can possess. She was cool, smart, comfortable in her own skin. She was one of the least self-deprecating models I’ve ever worked with. When we started making photographs a lot changed for me. Not only as a photographer but as a woman. Maybe even more importantly as a woman. Here was a human, not afraid to let me photograph her with nothing to hide behind, no character to portray, no fantasy story to tell, it was just her. In the moment. In the light. Just the way she is.

After this shoot I had a mix of emotions. Her body, so beautiful, so photographic in its shapes and contours was in one word: inspiring. She made me realize that the female form in any shape and size is incredible. To have curves, softness, confidence was true beauty. She represented to me what being a woman was all about. I understood why Renior and Matisse painted the way they did and I saw that beauty too. I was so proud to be a woman and in my personal life, more confident about the size of my chest and softness around my stomach. If wrinkles show the hand of time and the life that was lived, curves show the fertility of it and the raw attraction of humanity.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that women come in many fascinating forms and, at this sitting, I saw beauty in a way that should be more often seen.

Here’s to the beautiful form we call being a WOMAN.

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Old School Photography

Holiday_Card_2014_02Much about being a creative is really understanding your voice and your vision, which isomething I have struggled with in the past while trying to find myself as an artist. With the passage of time and constant study, you start to see who you are, what you love and then… how the world truly looks to you. I will never be able to escape my tendency toward romance, beauty, simplicity, emotion and the classics.

So, I embrace it.

I can never ignore the soul fulfilling satisfaction of taking a photograph from concept, to composition, and then captured at just the right moment on film. That one shot, the quarter of a second pulled from time and eternalized into a physical object of study. This was the birth of photography for me, this was how you would take a picture and then agonize through your fear of mistakes in the waiting of development; a torturous process that I’m insanely in love with. In 2012 I decided that our studio holiday cards would be created in this fashion every year as a way for me to count the passage of time, to make something of an artifact for the people in my life, and to slow down from our crazy digitized lives back to where it all began for me as a photographer. I get to give the best I’ve got in this old school process; my vision, my thoughts, my mind, my passions, my skill and most of all, my time.

For this year’s studio holiday card I thought about the recurring visuals from 2014 and let my mind’s eye wash away in the strong currents of pictorial memories. What stood out to me? What did I learn about myself? What did I realize I loved? We traveled around and around the world to Bali, Brazil, Australia, Ghana, Dominican Republic, Provence, Germany, England, the American South, and Peru (more on that next week!) and you’ve been with me each step of the way these 12 months.

As I reflected on the year the place I loved most was Paris. It keeps coming back to me, as if a part of my soul is there waiting. I love the classic nature of her perfectly white architecture. The endless amounts of art and inspiration. And of course, the light. I love the way the french look at beauty and the physical form. As an adult now in charge of my own body, destiny and confidence, I’ve found that I am now enamored with the beauty of the body, it’s evolution and ever changing shapes, the softness of skin and functionality that make us human. I thought about the beautiful sculptures of Paris that dot my endless walks, the thing I love to do most there. I thought about that day I spent in the Louvre with my father and all those breathtaking halls of beauty celebrating the female form. Then that was it. I wanted to bring all of those things into my world, in front of my lens, on an early winter evening at Ann Street Studio…

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Using a dark changing bag I loaded Ilford Delta 400 black and white film into my 4×5 sheet film holders. Below our intern Sarah Rocco captured behind the scenes shots photographing model Mitzi who I previously worked with at our studio and who I knew had the type of body I was going for. Holiday_Card_2014_07Holiday_Card_2014_11

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Men in This Town

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I met Giuseppe Santamaria, a men’s street style photographer, back in 2011 covering NYFW together. Since I’ve watched Giuseppe’s career and photography really grow into something very special in the men’s style realm. So special, in fact, that a book of his photographs was published this September called “Men in This Town“.  Giuseppe’s approach to photography, men’s fashion, and street style is quite romantic and not at all trendy or concerned with the “who’s who”. He really shoots from his heart. We sat down at our studio last week to catch up and ask him all about his first book~

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Above, a portrait of the photographer photographed on 4×5 black & white film

How did Men in this Town begin?

It started with a tweet. I had photographed my friend’s cookbook cover, and then I started following his publisher on Twitter. One day he said, “Done for 2013 books. Onto next year. Any ideas?” I jokingly tweeted back, “How about a Men in This Town book?” And a year later, it came out.

When did you first start photographing?

By trade I’m a graphic designer. I’ve been working with photos and amazing photographers my entire career. That’s where my eye was trained – not conventionally at all.

How did you learn photography?

Continue reading “Men in This Town”

Kyle Ford

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Every so often, you meet someone in a way that could only be described as serendipitous. Such was the case when we traveled to SCAD Lacoste and met photography professor Kyle Ford, a fine-art photographer who normally is based at the SCAD Hong Kong campus, but just so happened to be teaching the summer session photography classes at SCAD Lacoste.

As we know well, I love talking to other photographers…it’s always such a pleasure and honor to engage with people about their passions, especially when it’s in a field that I know and love myself.  So it wasn’t long before Kyle and I were planning a photo adventure in a Provençal vineyard and closing the night at a spectacular restaurant with our conversation about his path to photography, why he chooses film, and the research and thought behind the work he creates now…

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What was your first photograph?

I was seven years old, and there was a competition I think my mother encouraged me to participate in. She was a painter, an artist, and perhaps she was hoping I would draw something or paint something, but I ended up photographing something. It was a tree. I photographed what I thought was a ghost, and I thought that was great as a seven-year-old…it was really my breath in front of the camera.

KyleFord_005 KyleFord_006 Continue reading “Kyle Ford”

Chanel: Light and Time

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Light is the universe’s constant. Time is ours. As photographers we study light versus time, making calculations and judgement calls for each photograph we create, manipulating light to play alongside the constant of time. From a macrocosmic view of the universe time is just an idea, but for us it’s a reality that never stops. We use photography to take a slice of that time, doing the best we know how to manipulate something out of our grasp.

A portrait of a photographer, Time by Chanel.