Morgan & Owens

Malaysia edition

2012-01-13T14:20:00.004+08:00

: Straits Collection, Penang

Prints available at: Morgan & Owens Prints

Prints for Sale

2011-12-19T11:44:00.001+08:00

Last minute Christmas shopping? We have selected a handful of our favorite 2011 Morgan & Owens prints to share with you, now on sale at our photoshelter gallery.

Shop here: http://morganowens.photoshelter.com/gallery/Prints-for-Sale/G00009hAAwHdbn5Y

Shipped from US, in sizes from desk-top 4"x 5" to big-wall 24"x 35," in prints and stretched canvas. If you're located in Europe, Asia, or elsewhere, drop us a line, and we'll work out getting your print to you. Limited editions will be printed by us and shipped at the New Year, when we return from a little merry-making trip to Phuket.

We're launching with 16 editions of landscapes, seascapes, poolscapes, and friendly faces. Thanks! and please comment if you have any questions or special requests.

Singapore Eating Guide

2011-11-20T10:02:00.010+08:00

Happy Holidays! While we all have food on the mind, I thought I'd share a few of my favorite local eating.

In the past year we have had the opportunity -- no make that 3 opportunities -- to shoot stories on Singapore's extraordinary food culture. We love nothing more than to get to go inside the kitchens, get to know talented chefs and makan makan makan, or eat eat eat. So this is going to be a multi-stage post, as I take a moment before James finishes the kari ikan (Malay fish curry) we're having for dinner, to note a few of my favorites.

If you'll allow us to become temporary food bloggers (like Marge Simpson) here follows our totally biased, woefully incomplete, and entirely delicious

Guide to Eating Well in Singapore

Eat Laksa, Popiah, Chilli Crab, Chwee Kueh, Ondeh Ondeh, & Kaya Toast

These are our favorite (mostly pescetarian) local dishes.

Deserving of its own category, LAKSA is a coconut noodle soup, flavored by a complex spice mix that changes from region to region, even between neighborhoods (but always includes laksa leaves). Sungei Road Laksa, near the "Thieves Market" where the older gentleman behind the counter "tariks" or pulls the coconut broth over the noodles. Get two bowls so you don't have to stand in line twice -- you will want more. My friend over at Notabilia just posted a vegetarian recipe you might wanna try....

POPIAH rolls resemble a small burrito: a rice paper"skin" wrapped around cabbage, nuts, eggs, tiny shrimp, chili and seasoning. Qi Ji, a local chain whose most central location is at the bottom of the Technology mall Funan. Pick up a hard drive and a delicious snack! Fresh iced chrysanthemum tea and popiah, mmmmmm.

The Chilli Crab, favorite national dish to serve to tourists, is really extraordinary. You can get lots of versions of it, and they are all different recipes. Black Pepper Crab, Crab Bee Hoon (see above) -- all are wonderful, so eat in a big group to get more than one. Our favorite spot for this dish is at East Coast Park, where several of the best seafood restaurants are "co-located," in a pleasant breezy spot by the sea.

Finally, there's Chicken Rice. I've never tried it, but our subjects always seem to LOVE Tian Tian at Maxwell Hawker Center, and so do Robin and James. So there you go.

Next time, I'll report on food served with air-conditioning.

Shanghai edition

2011-10-11T10:40:00.004+08:00

: AroundSpace Gallery (http://www.aroundspace.org/en/index.php)

...part of our "From Singapore with Love" blog-post series

Laos edition

2011-09-28T00:33:00.004+08:00

: Luang Prabang

Seoul Cool - September, Travel + Leisure

2011-09-22T10:13:00.017+08:00

Things we loved in Seoul: The street scene - very nyc, the coffee shops (millions of them), the indie designers, Mapo-Gu and Garosugil, walking around the hills of Samcheong Dong, vegetarian dinner at Baru, Miss Park, the size (one of the largest five cities in the world, surprisingly), the couple who started Mogool Millinery, Soju....and, of course, all the lovely people we met and worked with!
A lot more than a little bit of soul in Seoul.

Malaysia edition

2011-09-18T23:01:00.004+08:00

: Temple Tree, Langkawi

From the archives: June 2011, DestinAsian Magazine

2011-09-16T13:31:00.022+08:00

Click here to read the story from DesinAsian's Digital Editions.

Leviathan

2011-08-29T23:53:00.003+08:00

Earlier this summer I made a quick visit to see my dear friends Raphaëlle and Xabi in Paris. Raphaëlle shared this grand exhibition, Monumenta, "Leviathan" by Anish Kapoor. The video does not do justice to the delightful experience of being plankton for a day.

A quick plug, Xabi has a new book out this month, here (en français).

Malaysia's foodie tour - Budget Travel's May issue

2011-06-22T10:58:00.043+08:00

This one blew right by us! We shot this feature for Budget Travel in the May issue. It's a wonderful journey up the Malay peninsula from Melaka (Malacca) to Kuala Lumpur up to Penang.

DONALD & LILIE'S: This wonderful family of three takes Nonya cuisine to a whole new level. They operate a small unassuming cafe out of the back of their Peranakan home on the main drag of Melaka's historic district. It was after tasting their Laksa that James decided it to be his favorite Southeast Asian dish -- followed closely by Roti canai! This shoot, for us, was an opportunity to try all the different sorts of Laksa they make in Malaysia -- Assam, Nonya, etc.

Because Melaka is so small it feels very classic. Some of the best places in town are tucked into 100+ year-old shophouses, and the vibe is lively on weekends as people pour in from nearby Singapore for a taste. Here, the Peranakan tradition seems very strong, at least at the tourist level.

KUALA LUMPUR: The contrast between little historic Melaka and bustling modern Kuala Lumpur is stark. We were in the Jalan Alor area, where the street food is gritty and hot! The vibe seems like a blur between classic Malay culture and architecture mixed with a street vibe that I imagine might resemble New York in the 1970's. We introduced ourselves to barbecue stingray, which tasted like something between crab meat and moist grilled cod, and loving the tangy and spicy rub.

The Sunday morning scene at Yut Kee, where the one-day-a-week roast pork extravaganza creates a line all day long! (right)

We hear rumors that this old and cherished establishment might be pushed out by city development in the area. We sincerely hope not!

Next stop, OLD-TOWN PENANG: We've walked the streets within this historic, unesco-heritage town several times now! It's old, it's hot, rough-and-tumble, and completely charming. In Georgetown, you can find old popiah sheet-makers (below, right) - think pizza tossers mixed with crepe street-venders.

Hotels like the Straights Collection that let you roam through vintage architecture and straits-style furnishings. It's no-doubt our favorite place to stay when in Malaysia (aside from its other location on the island of Langkawi!)

Big River

2011-03-30T21:21:00.009+08:00

Before we introduce this new work to you, I'd like to take a moment to remember my Aunt Lorene Joslin, who passed away peacefully in Springfield, Missouri this past weekend. A minister to the deaf and a woman of great faith, who spoke with her hands and her heart, she will be missed by our families. I'd like to dedicate the photograph you see here, made last October in Laos, to her memory. It's one of my very favorites, and I hope she'll like it.

One of our adventures last fall was a three day trip up the mighty Mekong from the Thai border to Luang Prabang last October with the classy boat outfitters Luang Say. We shot the story for Budget Travel's spring "Dream Trips" issue.

James is fond of telling people that two things are true of Laos, first, that we would never in a million years have thought we'd get the opportunity to go there twice, each October we've been in Asia--it's just so far away feeling. Second, the town of Luang Prabang is the rare place where you can close your eyes and know right where you are: the smell of the river and the spicy food, the sounds of chanting, bells, and bicycles, the soft mountain air on your face. We'd gladly spend a lifetime sitting in front of Le Banneton, munching on croissants and coffee, getting to know the young monks of Wat Saen, and smiling back at the golden Buddha across the road.

Our boat stopped over at a small fishing village near Pakbeng. The Khamu (or Khmu), one of the largest ethnic groups in Laos (a place of many ethnicities), live communally in small villages along the river, trading products, fish and rice in the market in Luang Prabang.

It's become an integral part of our photographic practice to give back to the people we photograph by making polaroids after the shooting's done. So without further ado: a video of our happy afternoon among the Khamu.

Bali Rock Video!

2011-02-25T10:04:00.000+08:00

Blissed out Bali! On Newstands

2011-02-23T19:46:00.011+08:00

In December we made a second trip to Mambal, near Ubud, to photograph a new treatment center for Destinasian, a luxury travel magazine based on this side of the world.

We lit the model Indah (left) with a strobe in a bathtub to her left, and photographed her from a neighboring treatment hut.

The river-side retreat, called Fivelements, provides the healing arts Bali has become known for, and adds an exceptional raw-vegan restaurant, villas with groovy lights, and family-style attention to a long list of spiritual and physical interventions, performed by these guys: Pak Dewa re-aligned my Chakras one afternoon, and Wayan cured a headache with a brief massage, and everyone there made us feel right at home.

Recipe Binder, now available

2011-01-24T23:08:00.003+08:00

If you had the pleasure of eating chez James on Henry Street, you'll know I have kept up an extensive collection of recipes to keep him curious and cooking! That scrapbook, a record of what we made there for you in those good years, fell apart. So in order to preserve the memories these recipes contain, I've scanned every page and had them rebound on Blurb.

RECIPE BINDER: The Brooklyn Years by Jessie Morgan-Owens | Make Your Own Book

You might have seen advance copies at Katie's or Gram's or Mom's house at Christmas time. You can order your own if you like! There's several ways to make a Chocolate Chip Cookie inside, and James's vegetarian chilli, and some recipes you've shared with us. Don't hesitate to let us know your favorites!

Singapore feature: now on newsstands

2011-01-05T17:34:00.009+08:00

We've got a feature in January's Travel + Leisure (US edition) on our town. Apologies to our local friends for the note of surprise the author adopts when finding Singapore fun, passionate, cool.

For this story, since we are "on the ground" in the city, we contributed photographs of some of our favorite places to round out the coverage. Among these are the handsome young men of White Canvas Gallery (see the opening spread) and Sungei Road Laksa, a "die-die must try" bowl of deliciousness that costs $4 (below).

Our thanks to T+L for giving us such a fine excuse to spend some serious time shooting our own backyard.

Happy Holidays!

2010-12-24T18:06:00.006+08:00

Wishing you happy holidays
& a year full of blessings.

Off to Bali!

Love,
Jessie and James

Conference Paper on John Thomson

2010-11-30T21:05:00.007+08:00

The Humanities Initiative at New York University invited me to present a paper on my photographic research and practice as part of their "Ambience in the Humanities" conference the weekend before Thanksgiving. The discussion, entitled "Cinematic Vistas," posed these questions:

At what point do images tell us we are out of place? What landscapes of imagination open up when we enter new imagistic territories? How do unknown and unexpected masses of ambient imagery affect the making of pictures? How, then, does ambience frame the vision of photographers and movie-makers before they themselves attempt to bring the world into frame? What happens when sudden shifts in culture, place, and external stimuli make these ways of seeing apparent? Where are our imaginations located?

For my presentation, I chose to tackle these questions in two parts: first, by introducing a 19th century travel photographer and essayist I am currently researching, and second, by considering about how our photographic practice has changed since we moved to Singapore 15 months ago. For both parts of my presentation, I chose to focus on the subjects of the photographs, as residents of these new "imagistic territories."

You can click through the presentation here:

John Thomson #2 on Prezi

Excerpts from the script of my talk, from Part 1:

Scottish photographer John Thomson's career has been celebrated by a series of “firsts:” photo-historians claim that he published “the first book ever devoted exclusively to street photography,” he created the first photographic documentary, he was the "first photographer to have a whole society as his subject,” his four volume book on China is considered “a classic of sociological photography and reformist sympathy,” and an “innovative use of photomechanical technology.” On the other hand, Susan Sontag scorned Thomson's later work in London, calling him a class tourist, and "Street Life in London" as “perhaps the earliest model of the sustained look downward.” Likewise, in Nancy Armstrong’s Fiction in the Age of Photography, Thomson’s photographs serve to demonstrate how the picturesque aesthetic informed slum photography, which in turn, she argues, distances the subject from the possibility of reform and rendered him or her into an object of fascination for Thomson’s middle class public.

These scholars are concerned with the problematic appropriation of the photographic subject for use and observation, a disquiet heightened by the very fact of Thomson’s status in this important strain of photographic use, the documentary.

That said, it is time to restore agency to the subjects of the photographs, those that people the "ambient" landscapes captured in the document, co-create the photograph, and who are engaged in the creation of the image. Subjects resist being captured in a frame in a way that contemporary criticism does not always account for. Prevailing criticism brings to light sets of ideas that trace power and influence from photographer to audience, but do not adequately address the relationship between subject, photographer, and audience in the moment of photographing. This paper will revolve around these three nodes of exchange -- photographer, subject, and audience -- but I hope ultimately to leave you with the subject, the men and women who are in focus in this frame and every frame, though somehow, of whom we can have only glimpses.

From the discussion on the King of Siam:

The photograph and the essay share the same author; nonetheless, interpretative details about the subject resist and append the information provided by the essay text. Photographs radiate meaning in variegated patterns, and our responsibility is to chart the vast differences in what we see, inside the photographic frame, and what we assume, or read about, occurring beyond the frame. The photographic detail exhorts against the division between the indexical moment of photographing and the material photograph. This contingent detail, the King's uniform, is a flaw or an opportunity that, to rephrase Benjamin, will never consent to be wholly absorbed in text.

And from part two, on Morgan & Owens in Asia:

In the first photograph, we have just "parachuted" into this Khamu girl's life - our boat landing at the beach near her village in Northern Laos only moments before. To me this photograph is unsatisfactory, for its prevalent emotion is trespass. This image is brought to you by Dolce and Gabbana.

In the video, the children pose for a group shot. The punctum in this sequence, for me, is the couple looking on -- tourists -- and our future audience.

In our move to photograph Asia, we have found a new use for an old technology, Polaroid transcends language barriers, invites collaboration. When people see what they look like, what sort of image we intend, they adjust, they direct, and they get something in return.

The photographs that bring us the most joy, I believe, were those made in collaboration with the subjects. They are records of an encounter, the willingness to engage strangers, an hour spent together. I made this photograph after we had gotten to know each other, and we had photographed several children in her village. She has changed her skirt from her school uniform to a favorite, and posed herself at home with a friend. She doesn't know why we are there, or what audience these photographs will have, but like the King of Siam, she knows how she wants to look.

Thanks for watching!
Jessie

ONE Photography Convention in ION Gallery

2010-11-12T13:17:00.003+08:00

Early in the summer, we were invited to produce "personal" images around the theme of ONE, along with 28 other photographers based here in Singapore. Our result was five images made on ONE street in Georgetown, Penang ONE hour in the morning. The images will follow, but first: a video of the show, for those of you who can't get here in person.

Shanghai mornings

2010-11-05T12:24:00.010+08:00

In Fuxing Park in Shanghai, early in the morning, the older folks get together to do Tai Chi and play badminton, and DANCE! What a way to start the day!

We took the opportunity to make portraits of some seriously happy people, and burned through a packet of Polaroid in exchange. It's always fun to give something back, especially when you don't speak the language!

T+L launches ipad version featuring our Shanghai story

2010-11-03T10:16:00.005+08:00

We haven't seen the final product, but from this video it looks pretty cool. If you have an ipad, check it out and look for an extended version of our November Shanghai feature!

PS. Our good friend Cedric Angeles did the photography and video for the New Orleans video.

Shanghai Rising: T+L Nov. '10

2010-10-26T11:47:00.007+08:00

Out now: Shanghai feature in the November Travel + Leisure. We'll post more on Shanghai soon, promise. It's such an interesting, artsy, nostalgic old town! Beautiful like Paris or New York.

(There's also a little bit about us in the contributors page.)

This last page is from an ipad app for Travel + Leisure that may not have launched yet - supposed come out in November. We haven't seen it yet.

At Prambanan, Yogyakarta

2010-09-26T17:20:00.006+08:00

A left-over picture, found on a roll that got stuck in the fridge, then processed 8 months later. Handsome smiles from the past.

So near... So AFAR

2010-09-01T15:28:00.000+08:00

Last May, AFAR magazine sent us up the Straits of Malacca from Singapore to a sleeping-beauty of a city: Old Georgetown on the little island of Penang. A quick one-hour flight up into Malaysia, there we found the princely Joe Sidek, a businessman/cultural curator who seems to know just about every artist and performer in town.

Getting in late on Friday night, he strolled up to meet us at The Straights Collection Cafe just near midnight after some business dinner, apparent by his pin-stripe shirt and sleek shoes. The hotel owner swoops in and comments on his classy digs. Joe shrugs it off with something like, "Always working, my dear, always working." He then goes on about last years Prada, how he grew up here in Georgetown, spent a bit of the 70's in London, the early eighties in Chelsea, and by the late nineties had returned to Penang to handle the family business. Ten years later, it appears he's been doing things we love to see people do -- connecting people, artists, cultures, and looking for everything good in his hometown. In 2008, Georgetown was brought on by UNESCO as a world heritage site. And now we're here.

By Saturday morning, Joe (above) was in his casual best and ready to show us the town like he had built the place--though he would never claim it as such being as unassuming as he is generous. Meeting the likes is one true perk of this job. By the end of the shoot, as is often the case, we were hooked on Penang... and loving AFAR's idea of a travel narrative.

The good people of AFAR included us in their contrib's page, which clearly has us looking forward to the next great journey they send us on.

SIDE NOTE: On the Editor's Page for this one-year anniversary issue, he talks person-ably of the magazine's first 75,000 subscribers and speaks of the next 25-thousand readers he hopes to see in the coming months. So look for the logo on the newsstands. We see it here in Singapore, so it should be a breeze!
Happy reading.

"Civic Life" in Tiong Bahru

2010-08-22T23:10:00.004+08:00

In local news - there's been a local heritage/cultural/art project going on around Tiong Bahru this summer called CIVIC LIFE:

"A major project exploring identity, architecture, memory, community, a sense of place and civic space."

There's a film, a film competition, a writing workshop, sketch walks, talks, an exhibit at the National Museum, and a blog with contributions by local artists, historians, intellectuals. From what I can tell, there's involved support from the arts community and locals, the British Council, the National Museum of Singapore, all those types of institutions. We sat and watched filming for the movie, "Civic Life" back on our first day back from NYC. Drinking sugar cane juice in the Tiong Bahru Market while two filmmakers led at team through several takes of an interview shot. I love watching films get made. Such persistence and team-work! It's a wonder we have anything to watch at all.

I'm enjoying the stories and memories captured on the blog - it's a great read, and a welcome place to explore, learn, and see the neighborhood from a local point of view. One of my favorite essays at the blog on Tiong Bahru was posted by Tay Kay Chin, a photojournalist, teacher and artist we had the pleasure of meeting for lunch a long while ago. This part slices life here nicely:

In fact, I think I know quite a bit about Tiong Bahru, to the extent that Mickey, my friend who alternates between his apartment at Blk 56 and another one in London, always wonders what I do for a living.

Like I know that the unit next to him is occupied by women only, including an ex-stewardess who is rather beautiful, and that her mom is the accounts clerk for the egg store downstairs, and that her uncle runs the coffee shop at the street corner.

I also know that further up the road lives an American photographer couple who does work for travel magazines.

Or that the Chinese restaurant a few car parks away serves the best coffee ribs.

[Read the rest of his essay, with pictures here. I hear the coffee ribs are delicious.]

Hold up, wait a minute! That's us!

So we contributed our photographs of the Taoist ceremony from April, which ran on this blog in the spring. I hope that by sharing the flip-book with CIVIC LIFE, a few more of the subjects can have a look. We shared some prints with the congregation that evening, but we couldn't share with everybody then - I hope this does the trick.

That, and we just signed another year's lease, so I guess that makes us almost like locals. Better start acting like it!

Big in shanghai

2010-08-20T22:32:00.002+08:00

James made the newspaper, the Shanghai Weekly, when two photographers, well, make that three, converged during coverage of a new al fresco bar called Flair on the 58th floor of the Ritz. 58 stories wasn't tall enough, so James stood on a table. (I took a few shots from up there too, but I was wearing a skirt, and it's windy up there!) Reposting from facebook.

Update: New website coming... Soon 'ish

2010-07-30T08:40:00.002+08:00

Slight delay on publishing the website due to an upcoming shoot and, well, writer's block. Does anyone want to write our About Us page for us?

Aiming for mid-August!!

New website coming soon!

2010-07-17T16:12:00.003+08:00

A screenshot of James's monitor as he works on our website redesign at www.morganowens.com. Wow.

Hello Canada!

2010-07-15T13:28:00.003+08:00

Since we've been back in Singapore, I have been the laziest blogger, but keeping super busy in nearly every other aspect of our lives, so I hope you'll forgive me!

On the newsstands: This month our Canadian fans (hi Kathy!) should look for The Globe and Mail July/August for a quick shoot in Kuala Lumpur, above. For this one, since it was the second shoot in Malaysia in two weeks, James went exploring, and found exactly the right substitution for a shoot-list dud. Look out for another fun weekend shoot in Penang Malaysia in next month's AFAR magazine.

The World Cup was a marathon here, with 10:30pm & 2:30am games. James missed only a handful, and both us maintained Eastern Standard Time a little longer than we should've. Those last games were a treat, but my favorite overall was still the game James and Anita got me out to Brewerkz to see, moments after stepping off the plane from Paris: USA!

Newstand Double Header: T+L & Budget Travel

2010-06-10T21:35:00.003+08:00

Hello from South End, Boston!

James and I have been traveling this month in the states, soaking up the Springtime style and the love.

Dad Owens called day before yesterday from the Dallas airport newsstand to see what issues we were in, and we had to go and check. (Now that's a sign of a good vacation!) Turns out street food ran in Budget Travel, a nice graphic roundup featuring Maxwell Food Center in Singapore, and our long awaited story on Epiros, Greece ran this month in the opening pages of Travel + Leisure. Will post when we get home to our scanners late this month.

Next up on our grand tour:
Later on today, a jaunt up to Concord for the Hawthorne Society conference, and some quality time with Walden Pond. Then it's off to Vassar College to see Sara and James get married (and USA beat England). We'll take the scenic route back into NYC, stopping by Beacon to see our dear Sam, Sarah, Greta, and Beck grow up. Then it's a few days in NYC to finish catching up with everyone. I hope to see you there.

On June 17th, Jessie heads to Paris and James heads to Chicago. In both places we will be doing the same thing: watching the World Cup.

Last time we followed the wins (inadvertently), in Germany, France, and then Italy for the win! I can't believe it's been four years, but I can't wait til it starts.

On newsstand now: Travel + Leisure

2010-04-28T21:15:00.007+08:00

In the May issue of Travel + Leisure: Our shots from Culebra for the round-up of "30 Secret Islands." Just off the coast of Puerto Rico, a 25 minute flight from downtown San Juan, Culebra is hardly a "secret" - it has one of the Caribbean's most glorious beaches, Flamenco beach, pictured here.

We were secretly jazzed to share the spread with one of our friends and photo-heroes, Frederic Lagrange.

A flip book of more of our shoot on delightful little Culebra coming soon.

Another day in the (Taoist) neighborhood

2010-04-21T20:28:00.006+08:00

We knew something was up when we saw the dragon resting outside our front door.

This Taoist ceremony, which lasted two days, was to honor the birthday of a god, Xuan Tian Shang Di. As it happens, the third day of the third lunar month also falls on my birthday this year, which also lasted through two days of feasting.

We've arranged the images more or less in chronological order.

Now in HD!

2010-03-25T22:35:00.010+08:00

Tired of flip books yet? Hope not, because Wonderful Machine has posted our portfolio on their Youtube channel. An entire book, for your viewing pleasure. Click through to see in hi-def full screen.
Thanks Neil, Amanda, Bill, and hand model!

Happy 2nd Birthday Emma!

2010-03-16T13:56:00.003+08:00

We love you!

Story Book: Java Indonesia--Prambanan and Borobudur

2010-03-07T17:40:00.007+08:00

In February, my brother Joe came to Singapore for a two week vacation. We looked for a side trip, something off the beaten track with history. We jumped a short flight to Java to check out two 9th century monuments: Borobudur, a huge Buddhist temple, and Prambanan, the area's largest Hindu temple. Both were built during the same period, across the valley from one another. Both under the violent gaze of an active volcano, Mt. Merapi (last erupted in 2006). Below is a story book of our trip.

We stayed at a great boutique hotel--Rumah Mertua--and spent some of the finest afternoons hanging out watching the rainy-season deluge, sent forth from Mt. Merapi daily like clockwork. A fantastic trip. Cheers Joe!

...and there's even video from Borobudur!

Laos revisited

2010-02-25T14:36:00.005+08:00

As promised, here's another look at our Laos feature shot for T+L last October. And, we're trying out a new storybook platform to view the images, so let us know how it treats you.

I broke up the images into four major sections: temple life, the locals, street life, and the river. At the end, you get a glimpse of two premier hotels in the area.

[story books are no longer available. For a peek at more from the story, go to: www.morganowens.com/portfolio_laos_2009.htm)

As we travel around the region, it's clear that Luang Prabang is a unique experience, hugely recommended. The combination of mountain village setting, mild-mannered tourism, Buddhist vibe, and the mighty Mekong makes the town hum all its own, indifferent to the rest of the world.

Wonderful Machine is Wonderful

2010-01-16T14:13:00.003+08:00

I stopped by to meet the folks at Wonderful Machine last month while I was in Philadelphia for the MLA. Turns out Neil Binkley, the voice of WM and all around great guy, was taking notes for their blog. I also had the pleasure of getting to know their innovative founder Bill Cramer and producer Amanda Hanley over a lunch that went so pleasurably long into the afternoon I missed two trains before I checked the time!

Read the story at:
http://www.wonderfulmachine.com/blog/?p=2005

Then go check out some hotshots at www.wonderfulmachine.com

Laos feature now on newsstands

2010-01-16T09:28:00.007+08:00

The feature we shot in Laos last October for Travel +Leisure has hit newsstands! You'll find it in American editions of the February 2010 issue or here.

Also, our images from shoots in Vieques and Hotel Casablanca in San Juan Puerto Rico ran in the November 2009 issue of Travel +Leisure as part of their "Affordable Caribbean Hotels" feature.

We'll be posting OUR favorite shots in coming days!

What we ate when we got back to Singapore

2010-01-10T11:21:00.012+08:00

Here's a menu of what we ate during our first 48 hours back in Singapore, with Kristine and Esme's visit as our excuse.

lunch: phad thai and tom yam soup
dinner: James's pizza, with kang kong and golden mushrooms

breakfast: pork, fish, and vegetarian porridge at Ah Chang
snack: dragon fruit and dark chocolate
lunch: katong laksa, rojak and lime juice at 328 Katong Laksa (see above)
snack: nutella tart and pear tart at Everything but Fries
dinner: chilli crab, buns, sauteed kailan with garlic, tiger beer, and fried, stuffed tofu at Jumbo

breakfast: Set 1 (kaya toast, eggs, iced kopi) at Toast Box
lunch: popiah rolls, roast pork with rice, chwee kueh, carrot cake (savory), pork and red bean buns, and sugar cane juice at Tiong Bahru hawker center (see above)
dinner: carrot ginger soup and salad, chez James

See how repentant we were by last night?

This month in Brooklyn/Monroe/Kansas City/Philadelphia

2009-12-17T21:23:00.003+08:00

Happy holidays! I am thrilled to be sitting in a rental apartment in Brooklyn on Smith Street, a delightfully familiar view out of my kitchen window and dear friends close at hand.

You'll find us here this week, making the rounds, celebrating the births, engagements, projects, and other life-changers that have happened since we've been gone. Next week we head to Monroe for Jessie's family Christmas celebrations, and then after lunch on Christmas day, we'll fly to Kansas City for Owens Christmas dinner, a Santa double header thanks to a year of bumped flights and a growing stash of frequent flyer miles.

Then, Jessie heads to Philly, where she will be delivering a paper on the influence of the photographic on Hawthorne's creative nonfiction -- 1:30 on Tuesday Dec 29th at the MLA. Stop by if you're a member.

She'll meet James back in Brooklyn on Dec 30th, where we'll be dancing and relaxing for the rest of 2009. Katie D has graciously made up her spare room and plans to have a little party. I look forward to hearing the steam pipes at Pratt again this/next year.

We go back to Singapore on January 5th, in time to welcome our second guests, Kristine Z and baby Esme and usher in the new semester.

So, if I don't get to say so in person on this whirlwind loved ones tour, I hope you and yours have a happy holiday season and a fruitful, prosperous, and magical 2010.

James's birthday

2009-11-10T23:37:00.010+08:00

"Do I look older?"

Last Wednesday, we took the day off to celebrate James's birthday. We began the day in the neighborhood at the Tiong Bahru market. I had convinced the plant vendor to bring in a Calamansi lime tree for him, which James had made VERY clear was his heart's desire.

(This bowl of limes was destined to become key lime pie)

After the tree was safely planted in our al fresco bathroom, we went out for porridge at Ah Chiang's, a neighborhood institution, and James's favorite breakfast since introduced to the goodness of pork porridge in Laos.

The shredded ginger and chillies make all the difference.

After breakfast and a nap we headed back to East Coast Park, the site of our Monsoon Halloween to try our luck with the weather. Almost as soon as we sat down with a coconut (to drink from with a straw), it began to rain again. We ran for cover in the same spot, but this was no 2-hour deluge. We had just about made it through the satay and popia rolls when it stopped. We took a beer down to the water's edge and watched antsy high school kids in teams and uniforms build sand castles. Windsurfers went out to the container ships and back again. No paddling through the inside!

It was my intention to get on the water or on a bike, but the sailboat rentals were for certified sailors only, so biking it was. We rode along the beach to a trail which turns north, running alongside Changi airport. It was gorgeous and wild, with the occasional plane watching -- this airport has one of every kind come in like clockwork all afternoon long. We'd ride a while, then watch planes land, then ride a while longer.

After we returned the bikes to the rental stand -- late -- we took quick showers at the changing stand, then drip dried while watching the sunset.

Once we were presentable, we made our way to the "Seafood Centre": the five top rated seafood restaurants in Singapore, all "co-located" by the Housing Development Board into one seafront extravaganza of capitalism and chilli crab. Jumbo, Red House, Fisherman's Village, Long Beach, No Signboard -- all of them set up to seat a thousand diners, all clamoring for our business. The only chilli crab we hadn't tried was the name that suited the day best: Long Beach. All day we'd been pretending that we were in California!

We got "Set A" which came with bamboo clams, rice with tiny, crispy silverfish, spinach and garlic, fried buns, chilli crab, and pumpkin ice cream, served over a jar of smoking dry ice. We ate everything but what got left behind on the table cloth!

Mamiya

2009-11-10T23:25:00.004+08:00

While we were photographing Mt Phousi, a group of French tourists decided that James and his camera are part of the attractions of Luang Prabang! Hear the temple drums in the background?

Monsoon Season

2009-10-31T22:19:00.002+08:00

And it's rained every day since! Just like home!

Jessie's first publication, available Feb 16, 2010

2009-10-19T16:16:00.006+08:00

In March 2007, I went to the UK (sponsored by the University of Southampton, where Quinn is now!) to deliver a paper on photography and abolition at a conference held in honor of the 200th anniversary of the end of slavery in the British Empire. Cora Kaplan and John Oldfield took interest in my work and invited me to submit a chapter for this volume. Scholarly publishing takes time, but Palgrave Macmillan now lists our book for next spring, and this week it appeared on Amazon.com

From the editors' description :

A collection of new essays, Imagining Transatlantic Slavery offers the latest research and thinking on current debates about the representation - past and present - of transatlantic slavery. Building on the interest generated by the bicentenary in 2007-8 of the end of British and American involvement in the transatlantic slave trade, our volume is interdisciplinary, drawing on history, literature and museum and heritage studies. Its focus is on the transatlantic nature of slavery and abolition, and the essays range from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century. Its distinguished contributors offer a critical view of the histories leading up to the defining decisions of 1807-08 and its complex legacies over the last two centuries. Essays on notable figures such as Phillis Wheatley, Olaudah Equiano, Hannah More, Benjamin Flower, and William and Ellen Craft are juxtaposed with those on early Quaker writing and the use of photography in abolitionist discourse. The last part of the book on 'Remembering and Forgetting' addresses debates surrounding the representation of slavery in drama, visual culture, museums and galleries, and appraises the importance of recent research to public understanding of slavery today.

Contributors: Brycchan Carey, Vincent Carretta, Lilla Maria Crisafulli, Eileen Razzari Elrod, Catherine Hall, Douglas Hamilton, Cora Kaplan, HollyGale Millette, John Oldfield, Jessie Morgan-Owens, Elizabeth Kowaleski Wallace and Marcus Wood

Maybe you want a taste? Here's the first paragraph from my chapter, "'Another Ida May': Photography and the American Abolition Campaign":

Photography’s potential as a persuasive visual adjunct to reform campaigns was recognised from the inception of the medium in 1839, even if before the half-tone process revolutionised printing in 1880 images had to be distributed hand-to-hand. The majority of photographs made in antebellum America were daguerreian portraits: a unique image typically the size of your palm, imprinted on a reflective mirror, encased in brocade and brass. Daguerreotypes circulated without captions; therefore, authors who utilised these early photographs to depict abolitionist ideology found a malleable and suggestive representative space. Their evidentiary power in political debate relied upon writing to instruct audiences how to ‘read’ these images. In this essay I will discuss images of two little girls, both in appearance white, one fictional and the other daguerreotyped, one free and the other a slave, that nevertheless illustrated the same potent message of late abolitionist rhetoric: that however impugned by the public’s anxieties surrounding miscegenation, the invisibility of racial markers demonstrated a moral obstacle to defining slavery along racial lines.

Pre-order your copy now! Or, since it's listed at $74.95, ask your library to order one for you.

Making groceries

2009-10-11T21:21:00.005+08:00

James and I went to Carrefour today to pick up some groceries, and ended up seeing Julie and Julia instead, which cast life in Singapore into sharp perspective.

The biggest supermarket in our area is a French-owned conglomerate, which means that we can pick up "Western" items like cheese, sausages, unscented eco-friendly detergents, cous cous, charcoal briquets, and El Paso brand tortillas (oh how far the mighty have fallen!). I heard Carrefour pronounced Ka-fou by a cosmopolitan local friend last night, but we still call it "Care-a-4." Stupide americaines...

The aisles are wide and well lit. Today, touts with bullhorns announced one-hour specials on Korean grapes, bone-density screenings, and ready-made Swiss rostis. Durian gets an entire section apart from the regular produce. The first basement offers the sorts of items one might find in Target (but mysteriously, whatever we are shopping for-- lamps, gardening tools--is never there).

In short, making groceries here in no way resembles a trip The Met on Henry Street, followed by a visit to Scottos or Smith and Vine, followed by Fish Tales, followed by Mazzolas, followed by the green market on Carroll Street, and the many other stops on our peripatetic daily shopping trips in Brooklyn and Union Square. That said, the reason we live in this neighborhood is the extensive wet-market a few blocks away, which we visit with the same frequency we did our marketing at home. So it's all good.

But some things necessitate a visit to Carrefour, which is located on the ground floor and 1st basement of a 9 story shopping mall called Plaza Singapura (which we pronounce with a Spanish accent for no reason whatsoever). This mall is but one of many malls on Orchard Road, an avenue which features 10 blocks of 9+ story malls facing one another, many of which also have grocery stores on their bottom floors and cineplexes on their top ones.

Each floor of Plaza Singapura has a theme: for example, go to floor 5 for hobbies and crafts, floor 6 for music and instruments stores, and a floor each for books, young fashion, imported fashion, home improvement, etc. There are four food courts, each catering to a different taste: mall restaurants, local hawker style food, fast food chains, and the desserts/snacks chains.

Today, I was feeling a little post-shoot malaise. Anyone feels low when a week-long trip is followed by a long work week of catchup, though in my case, this feeling is compounded by nostalgia for the those 7 days of joy, fulfillment, and energy that accompany successful creative output. Add in meeting beautiful new people and trying new cuisines while staying in five star accommodations and you'll understand the catch in my stride. So I planned to enjoy a book of poems written by my landlord at the Starbucks, and then join James in a bit of grocery shopping.

(Caveat: Before you indulge my feeling sorry for my slump today, I should admit that I had a great week at the university and then I spent Saturday: at a poetry reading from 1-2:30, then a dessert date at 3:00 with my female colleagues, then we met friends at Siloso beach at sunset, then J and I watched part of a movie on our couch, then we met up with friends for falafel and foul on Arab street, had a nightcap at a jazz club, and still managed to catch a full night's sleep. So don't let me whine.)

Instead, we wandered up to level four to look for a lamp for my office, stopped by the faucet store to a price a hot water heater for the kitchen sink, and did a quick pass though the sale at the fabric store on level five. Since we were all the way upstairs, we decided to visit the cineplex on level 7 to see what was on. There was The September Issue, but frankly, Gourmet's closing this past week has me just too aggravated at 4 Times Square to enjoy a movie about the work (and waste) of putting together a magazine. But Julie and Julia was in sneak previews today...in 5 minutes! so we bought tickets and went in.

I got a little teary in those first few minutes because I simultaneously missed our life in New York, Paris, my mother (Meryl reminds us of her), and Julia Child, who I just love, even though I haven't successfully made a single one of her recipes. I remembered how we used to shop for groceries in Brooklyn, how our apartment (much less than 900 sqft!) also looked crammed with worn but comfortable things, how I also got pearls on my 30th, and oh, all that beautiful fall produce I'm missing! I remembered the first time I read the Julie/Julia blog and marveled at the tenacity of her idea. I remembered the first time I went to Dean and Deluca, and the rooftop parties--it was at my first roof party that I met my dear Parisian friends, who would in time, teach me about markets and picnics and productivity.

The movie is slow in parts, too long by a quarter hour, and delightfully sappy as all get out, but my thanks and my two thumbs up for capturing that moment. (But did we really dress like that in 2002? for goodness sakes!)

After the movie we sat at an outdoor table at Toast Box for butter and jam/butter and ham sandwiches and pretended we were on the continent. Then we did our shopping at Carrefour and tried to enjoy the irony. At the checkout line I bought the last copy of the last issue of Gourmet. Then James made beet salad for dinner, followed by my zucchini bread and some brie.

Bon appetit!

call me

2009-10-09T23:30:00.004+08:00

I hate to use this space for product placement but I want everyone to know that you can call us on our 718 number, and vice versa. There's been a some confusion when we call and our 718 number comes up on your caller id, seeing as how we sure don't live in Brooklyn anymore! We subscribe to a service called Vonage that magically transferred our old home line into a little black and orange box, that when hooked up to a DSL line anywhere on the planet, thinks it's still in Brooklyn. So our phone rings here in Singapore, though for all intents and purposes, your phone company thinks you're calling Brooklyn. It works the same for us, too, when we call you. Our bill looks the same as if we were calling you from Brooklyn. Except Vonage throws in 60 other countries for free, including Singapore and her neighbors, Germany, UK, Mexico, France, and 50 other places we haven't had a reason to call yet. For this service we pay a flat rate of about $30, which we call the Momma Bill, since my mom and I love to talk to each other on the phone. Worth every penny!

The downside: having a 718 number that rings in Singapore also means that dinner time sales calls ring here at 6am. And sometimes even well-intentioned callers get the time zones upside down. Thankfully, the service comes with voicemail, so we'll call you back when we wake up and turn the ringer back on.

Hanoi airport

2009-09-26T16:44:00.010+08:00

We are waiting out a long layover at the Hanoi Airport on our way to a shoot in Laos. James is trying to condense our scouting/shooting in Singapore last week into 200 words for the magazine, while I read the International Herald Tribune and try not to use up all my kleenex (I'm kicking a cold, so we decided not to take a cab into town exploring). James reports that the Banh Mi at the Bamboo cafe in the airport is not as good as at Hanco on Bergen Street.

Every other time I've heard Vietnamese spoken all around me was in the movies. What a trip! We can't help but be dorks about it. I know we're supposed to seem like jaded jetsetters, weary world-travelers but OMG We're in HANOI! What would our 19 year old selves think of us if they saw us now?

The Kodak people interviewed us back in the Spring, over the phone, while we sat at the big table in our apartment in Brooklyn.We rattled off stories about ourselves and what we did to get here. They've just published an article about us in their ProPass magazine. See "Partners in Life, Partners in Business" online at their website along with a slide show some of the photos we have taken with Kodak film these last 9 years. They seem to think that if our 20-something year old selves could see us now "after 9 short years" (really? didn't seem short to me!), they'd think we were living a "fairy tale." There's an editorial in the IHT called "The Referendum" today which posits that since we shouldn't look back (see: Lot's Wife) we look sideways, and evaluate our lives to the paths taken by our dear friends and neighbors. There's a winning view of James from where I'm sitting (at the airport in Hanoi OMG!!!!).

In the article I say that I learn a lot from talking to photographers, but omits the names of to those photographers with whom we've shared long standing conversations and poker games. I'd like to ameliorate that with a big shout out to Cedric Angeles, David Nicolas, Frédéric Lagrange, Zubin Shroff, Buff Strickland, Ball & Albanese, and Joshua Paul. There's a legion of other photographers we know, and some who feel like familiars. My thanks to them as well, but that's a list for another post, compiled from someplace with airconditioning.

Tanjong Beach--our new harborside spot (part 2)

2009-09-10T23:59:00.002+08:00

Tanjong Beach--our new harborside spot (part 1)

2009-09-10T23:36:00.006+08:00

WEBSITE!

2009-08-29T13:51:00.005+08:00

A new look for the new digs! Check it out at www.morganowens.com!

We have long found the quote on the first page inspirational. It's from the hilarious first chapter of Moby Dick, "Loomings." These days it seems an apt slogan for our new lives on the equator, though we've edited out the part about lungs and ragged purses.

And introducing two new features: a Print SALE, found on the About Us page. This month we are offering Dr. Tibor Beske's favorite, and generally beloved image from Rovinj in Croatia. (FYI: The existing print sale is closed.)

And an image library will be up and running by the end of the year for all you photo-editors and researchers.

Enjoy!

Mythologies, or One Month in Singapore

2009-08-25T21:27:00.014+08:00

Before we readied ourselves to move here, “Singapore” was not a proper noun I often said or often heard. In the months prior to the Big Move, dozens of friends passed along contacts and recommendations for our new lives here. I found it startling to uncover unknown connections to what was at that time a faraway, unknowable place.

This blank spot in my imagination’s map effects my daily life in a way I did not expect. I wander around this city without a representational map, without layers of history and mythologies to guide me. When we drop into a new neighborhood bar, we don't know how long it’s been there, what the neighborhood is called, what they serve, what language the locals speak, what religion they celebrate. It’s not at all like the West Village, where I can point out where the Velvet Underground or Bob Dylan first played, the temperature of the local contemporary scene and the highlights of scenes past, which restaurants are new and which are treasured, what ethnicity predominates now, and who was there before they moved in.

I’m no longer a tour guide. Now I guess I’m a resident tourist. It’s a feeling strange to me. Is this what acculturation feels like? Am I getting my first real taste of what it feels like to be a minority? Am I making the first steps towards assimilation or towards global citizenship, or even *gasp* expatriation?

In the month since we arrived on July 21st, we’ve figured out the bus system, comparison shopped our local markets, run errands all over central, northern, and western Singapore. We hit the ground running like we're on a shoot, enthusiastically applying every ounce of that talent for producing that James and I share. We’ve reveled in the details of new-homemaking. (And let's be honest: we were already fluent in "mall" and "ikea.") We have just begun to make friends and have even marked a few special spots we can’t wait to show the people we miss.

(We had very little to go on. I can recall four details about a-priori, pre-arrival Singapore. I’m embarrassed to include them here, but it seems somehow useful, to record my blindness before my eyes adjust and I can see what’s plain in front of me:
1) In the 90s, the story of the diplomat’s kid who was caned for vandalism dominated the Singapore myth.
2) Don’t chew gum.
3) According to Anthony Bourdain, the food is inventive, spicy, and cheap.
4) “We sail tonight for Singapore…we’re all as mad as hatters here…”
My dad, who was in Indonesia at the time, has told me another side, so that item of news seems tinged by the retelling. Still, I do miss admiring graffiti. I watched the No Reservations episode on Singapore twice before coming. So far, #3 strikes true. Tom Waits is probably not the best conduit of cultural knowledge of this sort, but the song sticks with you. None of these three wise men are Singaporean. )

I am delinating the counters of a blindspot, recognizing unknown islands of history, of cultural legacy, of ideology that mean so much to me and my work. Without storytelling, this place seems more foreign, even if the day-to-day-life, for better or worse, feels much the same.

We’re just catching up on what signifies what. I’ve never lived, or for that matter, been a tourist someplace I knew nothing about before. I'm a know-it-all with a penchant for living in places seeped in stories that fascinate me. I’ve learned, then taught, propagated, and enacted "Brooklynite" or "New Orleanian" as a resident actor and artist.

Maybe that’s why we travel? To walk through closed down markets of Paris at night, shining in the rain, to drive a convertible right up to the club door in Los Angeles, to shine a light into the cave of the Cyclops, and survive to tell the tales, and to have these tales become part of us.

I believe, following Roland Barthes, that the culture encoded in images and speech communicate great volumes of meaning, which are enormously powerful in practice. They influence communication between cultures. We're in the business of communication between cultures. When we shoot, we riff on this script of prior representations. So what myths will we learn, point out, and propagate here?

Earlier this week the locals started burning tissue paper luxuries – bundles of fake money, paper houses, paper shirts – in high piles in the park in front of our house. Altars covered in food and incense turned up all over. I knew from a walking tour of NYC Chinatown that these paper luxuries honored the dead. I’ve since discovered that this is Hungry Ghost month, when the boundary between the Other Place and ours blurs. There are new orange cakes at the market I had to ask about: they’re bland to living humans, to be bought for the ghosts. One of my students came up to me after class the other day to explain that I was not to walk through the piles of ash, or angry spirits might follow me home. How treacherous ignorance can be!

My starry-eyed honeymoon with Singapore has begun. These last few days James or I has turned to the other and said: "I really like it here" and "This is all turning out much better than we could have hoped." We’re hitting the culture scene hard to make up for lost time: talks, museum visits, art galleries, film festivals, activist happenings. I try to order something new each day: today's delights were Kickapoo Joy Juice and Prawn Mee (translation: Mountain Dew, but greener, and shrimp spaghetti, but yummier). I’ve signed up for an afternoon lecture on working with the different cultures that make up our new society. I ordered documentaries on Hungry Ghost and on Singapore history from the local Netflix. James has shared a you-tube video of the Prime Minister talking about cultural and religious tolerance. I expect we'll turn out to be a quick study in “Asia 101,” as we're putting all our energies into finding the groove of our new home.

But I’d like to acknowledge, one month in, what a humbling and intellectually invigorating road lies before us.

My commute, a slide show

2009-08-10T23:45:00.007+08:00

In honor of the first week of school: my commute.

The tune is "Early Morning Blues" by Archibald. (Thanks Brent for the track, and yes, I know the title of the song is misleading, but for some of us arriving at work by 10:30 means early. Somehow I managed to lose my wallet later that afternoon--it just disappeared!--so that day was a good day to play the blues.)

Total eclipsed time in real life: 45 minutes. Oh, and the campus is now thronged with students. I won't see all those empty seats in the canteen and on the bus until December. But the train is always that empty both ways due to the "reverse" commute out of town.

My first class meeting isn't until Friday morning, 9:30am. "Nineteenth Century American Literature and Culture." I am looking forward to kicking off the new job and meeting the students.

We're all moved in -- our stuff arrived on Saturday, and we've been spending the three day weekend (Happy 44th National Day!) unpacking and rearranging and shopping. When the shipment first arrived, and our things started appearing out of boxes, I admit a few teary moments. I guess this really means 545 is no more! for real! but our things do look beautiful in here. The track lighting and 18% gray walls are very flattering. We chose well, and brought only the very best stuff, and it all made it here in good shape.

After 6 weeks of living out suitcases it sure feels good to put them away -- full of winter clothes for our December visit!

A bit more from the neighborhood

2009-08-03T01:06:00.004+08:00

Here's a few more walks through the neighborhood. Sorry for the camera shake!

Two shakes and off to Tiong Bahru

2009-08-02T00:24:00.004+08:00

We headed to our new digs today in Tiong Bahru. Check out some of the fun bits and a tour of the place!

I hope to post a tour of the neighborhood soon.

We have KEYS!

2009-07-31T21:31:00.008+08:00

It's official! we have a beautiful apartment in a a fantastic, traditional neighborhood. We fell in love with the first one we saw. It was featured in the local paper, The Straits Times, after renovation a few years ago. Moh Guan Terrace is a distinctive and historic building just a few minutes from the subway to work--and a few minutes in the other direction to the best fresh market I've seen. Did I mention the patisserie? the seafood joint? the Chinese garden? the French grocery store? the parks?

The previous tenant lived a few blocks from us in Brooklyn, believe it or not! Our landlord is a published poet. And our agent, Alvin, has been accommodating, knowledgeable, and generous. We've been blessed throughout this whole transition so far -- moving to Singapore has been surprisingly smooth and easy. Warm as the weather.

Click through to link to the story on the apartment, posted on Alvin's blog, which is a good source on the neighborhood if you want to tool around.

We'll be following up with photos of our own in the coming days. (It's a little freaky living in the kind of place we usually would be assigned to photograph!) In the meantime, we're in the horse shoe shaped building... the market is in the triangular one. Our place faces the park, from the bottom of the "U."

Whoo hoo!

PS: at almost the same moment it seems my cousin Laura posted pictures of her new place near Berkeley!

"What a Woman Can Do With a Camera"

2009-07-31T06:25:00.000+08:00

My title comes from an article published in the September 1897 issue of Ladies Home Journal written by Francis Benjamin Johnston, one of the first women to have a successful career as a commercial and editorial photographer. She supported her self with her camera for nearly seven decades, from the 1880s when she began photographing, until her death in 1952. Her advice, ladies:

“The woman who makes photography profitable must have, as to personal qualities, good common sense, unlimited patience to carry her though endless failures, equally unlimited tact, good taste, a quick eye, a talent for detail, and a genius for hard work. In addition, she needs training, experience, some capital, and a field to exploit.

When she wrote this article, she was the age I am now. She had a studio in Washington DC, where she photographed the political and upper classes. (And where she also threw great parties complete with a photo booth. That's her in a self-portrait)

I submitted a little article on FBJ today for an encyclopedia on American Women.

Jessie Cookies

2009-07-30T22:40:00.004+08:00

Extra high fiber!

Another quick note: The Peruvian pan-flute players that used to play the plaza at 43rd street at 6th avenue are here, and they draw a huge crowd at the mall ! And they are dressed in full regalia -- feather head-dresses and moccasins, the whole thing. Same songs too. Familiar faces!

Apartment update coming soon... we meet with the agent to finalize tomorrow...

Pictures from around NTU

2009-07-25T16:22:00.010+08:00

We're staying in an on-campus hotel until we get an apartment. We've been running around town though, checking out apartments and studios, checking in at quarantine on Simon and Maybe, getting our S Passes (like a green card) at the Ministry of Manpower (total wait time: 3 minutes), and eating eating eating. I will admit we've even visited a few of Singapore's mighty malls. And even liked the experience.

Here's some snapshots from our first 72 hours. First, "Breakfast Set A" at the nearest student canteen: strong coffee with condensed milk and sugar, two half-boiled eggs seasoned with soy sauce and pepper, and three mini-sandwiches of wheat toast with butter and kaya (the word means "rich" in Malay) a sticky sweet local jam made from eggs, sugar, coconut cream and pandan essence. According to Wikipedia, pandan essence is extracted from the local screwpine tree. I can't get enough of it. My second night here I bought a bag of ten croissants slathered in the stuff, then thought better of it and shared the rest around the office. This breakfast, a perfect blend of savory and sweet, costs S$1.50, but probably 1500 calories.

The new Humanities and Social Sciences Building, still in the late stages of getting ready for the semester. My office is on the third floor overlooking an atrium that opens up in the center of the building. I don't get a lot of natural light, but I imagine once the courtyard fills with students and a coffeeshop, I'll have a good view of the local social life. My mailing address is Asst. Prof. Jessie Morgan-Owens, HSS-03-71, 14 Nanyang Drive, Singapore 637332.

The residential area of campus, over by Canteen 2. The covered walkways are lovely when it rains -- besides keeping us dry as we walked around, they sound like rain on tin roof. This shot was taken from the bus stop, a vital piece of campus real estate. Six buses loop around campus, making stops at other residence halls, the library, the administration buildings, and the academic buildings. Two public buses, 179 and 199, and one NTU shuttle leave campus and drop passengers at the MRT (subway) station, passing through the neighboring apartment buildings on Pioneer Road. We've caught buses here several times a day since we arrived. You touch a metrocard to a reader as you board and come off the bus. For the most part they seem reliable, but I'm building 20-25 minutes into my commute any time I need to catch the subway into city center.

We take the 179 to Boon Lay MRT station, which features an adjacent megamall, Jurong Point, which my colleagues tell me recently doubled in size, which is considerable. Check out the food court on level one. This is one of five food courts in this mall (that I've seen, there may be more). We saw Harry Potter last night, which was fun, but made me a touch homesick, especially when I left Hogwarts to wander this busy, bright, extrasensory experience in search of a late night snack. That said, James did catch me gushing about the mall before the movie, and did not hesitate to point out that he never thought I would get excited about a mall.

When in Rome, shop like the locals do!

I can't believe this was just two weeks ago!

2009-07-25T16:08:00.004+08:00

Here's Uncle James and Uncle Greg and the nephews in the community pool -- Friday night in Kansas City!

"We Sail Tonight for Singapore"

2009-07-22T08:58:00.005+08:00

Here I am waking up on my first morning in Singapore, our new home for a few years.

WOW. As I told my mom on the phone from the gate at JFK: This may be the craziest thing we've done yet. Or not. It could also be one of the smartest of our good decisions -- like the one to move to New York in 2000 or to marry James at a wee 23 years of age. Only time will tell!

Now because our dearest friends and fun-loving families put together the most delicious three weeks of memories of you all for us to savor, I don't feel all that homesick yet. I probably won't until I a) get through these mix-cds and b) lose these extra five pounds of po-boys and BBQ and watermelon mojitos and c) this feeling that "we're just away on a long shoot" for a few months wears off. Since we have plans to return to the states in December and again next June, I hope we can keep up this cycle, at least for the first year or two. Or until you all get yourselves over here for a visit.

Yesterday I made it through the first half of my orientation at the University; they thankfully postponed the complicated bits about health insurance and all that for today at 3:00pm. I got the keys to my office, and an email address and faculty id card.

We discovered the grocery store about 20 minutes walk off campus-- we explored this map's worth-- and bought a month's worth of kopi (strong coffee with sugar) in single serving tea-bags for the hotel room, and six Australian oranges. Our total = S$ 5.80 or US$4.00. They had the most beautiful live "flower crabs" for sale. At the bakery near by, we bought four buns -- one cheese, one red bean, one sweet potato, and one coffee for S$2.00 or $1.30. Two hawker centers were there too, with the usual menu items. More on that later. There was a GIANT and architecturally gorgeous (water falls, Gehry-esque curves) Protestant church across the street that had a box office line up of teens for evening services. We passed big groups of people on our way home, getting off buses and pouring into the church.

Today, I could barely make myself stay in bed until 6 am. I woke up in the middle of the night, thinking of my office, whether getting a MAC is a battle I'm up for, how to organize it, who to keep my research going in two places at once. Then I'd nod off, and get back up, and so forth until morning, which broke rainy. Made some instant coffee, read a little, and headed to the gym at ....7 AM! Now James has finished his workout too, and we're off to one of the student canteens to get breakfast, then to the bank to open accounts.

Heard on the radio at the gym, that there's a solar eclipse in this part of the world this afternoon. Quite a strong omen for one's first day, don't you think?

More soon, Jessie

Image Chosen by AP25

2009-05-22T18:51:00.005+08:00

Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum

Thanks to American Photography 25 for including us in this year's chosen category. The image above was shot during a road trip story for Budget Travel.

There is a slide show of selected and chosen images here: http://www.ai-ap.com/cfe/APss/. For a little friends and family background information on the contest, here's the press release email:

May 15, 2009

We are pleased to present the Selected and Chosen images from this year's American Photography 25 sliver-anniversary competition. All winners were previously notified by email in April.

On behalf of the entire jury, I’d like to thank everyone who entered this year for their submission and support of American Photography. It’s greatly appreciated and we look forward to the opportunity of viewing your best work again next year.

From a record-breaking 10,100 photographs submitted through our online submission site, our distinguished jury (which include all past Jury Chairs) met in February to select the best images from 2008. After careful consideration, and quite a lot of fun, they humbly Selected only 351 photographs by majority vote or better to appear in the book. AP25 will be distributed world-wide in hard cover in November. Another 171 images were then Chosen with at least two votes to accompany all images on our web gallery TRIBUTE to be launched with the book in November at ai-ap.com.

A link is provided below that will take you to a slide show of the Selected (book) and Chosen (website) images. From here you’ll see the winning images presented in alphabetical order by photographer. Additional credits, photographer's contact and complete captions will be included in the book and on the permanent web gallery in November.

American Photography 25 Slide Show

The slide show will be up for a limited time in preparation for the official launch at The Party on November 12th! Be sure to mark your calendar for this one-of-a-kind, highly-anticipated, annual event - and stay tuned for details and upcoming announcements on the book design and production. Discounted, advance orders for AP25 will be available in September at ai-ap.com. (A few copies of the current volume AP24 are still available at http://www.ai-ap.com).

Again, our thanks to everyone who submitted work this year and our congratulations to all the winners! We are proud to present your work in the 25th edition of the industry’s finest example of Pulp and Circumstance.

Congrats to all the other photographers and photos in AP.
Thanks to the makers of the memorial, and respect to those it represents.

Cheers!

Doctor Jessie Morgan-Owens, Ph.D.

2009-05-13T10:02:00.011+08:00

Last week, Jessie finished her dissertation, 250 pages entitled "Black & White: Photographic Writing in the Literature of Abolition." Her abstract reads:

ABSTRACT
In Black and White: Photographic Writing in the Literature of Abolition, I examine the influence of photography on American abolitionist literature and culture following the Compromise of 1850. My study of the diverse print culture of abolition focuses on instances of what I call photographic writing, or description reconceptualized in relation to a distinctly photographic way of seeing. I compare visual and verbal representational modes in anti-slavery rhetoric to show how this new technique of persuasion was intended to prompt the reader to action.

Photography was introduced into the United States in 1839, but four decades would elapse before innovations in print technology enabled the dissemination of photographs in the media. During this period, abolitionist authors used photographic writing in their didactic texts to convince audiences of the truth of their claims. My dissertation offers an analysis of the production and dissemination of anti-slavery photographs, before pursuing a second order of photographic testimony in texts in which actual photographs play no part. Throughout the daguerreian period in the United States, “to daguerreotype” meant to represent or describe with minute exactitude. This figurative connotation builds on the assumption that photographs register a neutral copy of what they represent without mediation or interference. I argue that photographic writing functions as a means of borrowing the immediacy, veracity, and accuracy promised by photography. When Harriet Beecher Stowe offers to “daguerreotype” Uncle Tom for her readers, or when Frederick Douglass describes scenes as “daguerreotyped” upon his memory, they express the culture-wide assumption of the medium’s fidelity and claim its representational authority for their narratives.

Historicizing the innovative literature of abolition within the history of photography, my dissertation offers a new perspective on these early attempts to appropriate the power of visual evidence. Abolitionism in the 1850s provides a test case for radicalism in America. I argue that the modernization of the art of persuasion began with these efforts to deploy images strategically in antebellum political discourse.

She has been researching and writing this dissertation for many, many years under the guidance of her advisers at New York University, Nancy Ruttenburg and Bryan Waterman. The first thing most people read when they look at a dissertation is the acknowledgments page:

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank my advisor Nancy Ruttenburg, who, with a singular warmth, has directed these thoughts into writing. Her praise, though effuse, must be earned, and for that I am grateful. My gratitude also goes to Bryan Waterman, who has guided me through graduate study with unflagging energy. He makes scholarship look cool.

This study was enriched from the start by conversations and seminars with Virginia Jackson, Elizabeth McHenry, Patrick Deer, Ulrich Baer, Mary Poovey, Eduardo Cadava, Cyrus Patell, Mary McCay, and Leslie Parr. My final year of writing was made possible and pleasant by the Humanities Initiative. My thanks to our roundtable of Fellows for the opportunity to test and refine my ideas in your distinguished company.

I was lucky to come to NYU when I did, for I found in my cohort Maeve Adams, Sam Anderson, Alan Page, Melissa Hillier, Susan Harlan, and Jon Farina, my most brilliant and jovial companions. Maeve, the dearest of these, tells me she admires this work so often that I have begun to believe her. Even so, I hope to keep her by my side. For our long summertime conversations about writing, life, and politics, I’d also like to thank Raphaëlle Guidée and Xabi Molia. I also count among my educators the members of GSOC, who taught me about solidarity, equity, and long campaigns.

This city has provided me with both the resources to do my research and the environment to make pictures of my own. I’d like to recognize my photo editors, for the assignments near and far that have refreshed my vision with the steady clicks of practice, and to express my gratitude for the esteemed photographers I am lucky to count among my friends, for indulging my theories about the art we produce.

I come from a large and far-flung family that has kept pace with every turn of this dissertation. My thanks to all of you, siblings and parents, aunts and uncles, Morgans and Owenses alike, for your pride and understanding have blessed my labors with love. In everything I do, I owe my success to the women who have taught me balance, my mother Missy Cotita and my grandmother Ruth Liuzza.

And I must acknowledge my partner in art and in life, my beloved James Owens, who makes my dreams possible.

On Wednesday, May 27th, Jessie will defend her dissertation before a committee. On that day she will have completed all of the requirements for her PhD. So last Wednesday she turned in a copy to her department for them to read. Here's her desk on the last day of a long road.

Her family came up to New York last weekend to celebrate her graduation. Her Mom and step-dad Tim from Monroe, Louisiana, her dad who works in El Salvador, her sister Katie and her husband Nick from Tuscon with their little girl Emma, and her brother Andy, who lives in Belgium, and his girlfriend, Quinn. We had a wonderful weekend eating and celebrating all over Brooklyn. This was a week to remember.

After the ceremony at Lincoln Center:

The BIG coast of little Istria

2009-05-05T10:15:00.012+08:00

Last summer, Jessie and I shot a wonderful feature for Budget Travel in Croatia. The shoot list took us all over the Istrian coast…on a map, it’s but a pin prick, but once there it's as big as any southern european coastline. The Italians, Germans, and Russians love this place (that’s mostly who we saw there)…and with good reason. The food is every bit as good as much of Italy, inland ranges as lush and gorge-ous as much of Germany, and something about it…could be history?...feels a touch of Russian.

So we roamed from mid-size Pula in the South to mid-size, and slightly more roulette-ish, Piran just inside Slovenia. In-between is Istria, a peninsula that looks like a bunch of grapes. It’s got coast towns, gorge towns, medieval towns, towns filled with truffles, loaded with salt flats, and of course tear-drop towns jutting out into the Adriatic…. We liked it.

One of the more surprising treats, was the trip into Slovenia, where the town of Piran didn't blow us away completely--could have been the vegas-strip style drive into it--but just south is something films could be made of, and perhaps have been. The salt flats are just gorgeous, and if I had our negs here, I'd slip in a few shots from the rain-hewn inlet that draws it's flavor from the uppermost portion of the Adriatic. We brought home a bag of salt (Piranski Sol, one for us, and one for our friends Maeve and Robin) and are just near emptying its contents....10 months later! It's a gem-like bag, and try as we may to empty it, there seems to be more for the next meal. I think it's magic, but Jessie thinks I'm just stingy with it. I do have just a couple more scans from Piran below.

Check more out in the May issue of Budget Travel!

City Art

2009-04-27T23:26:00.014+08:00

It's hard to believe that a 55 degree day back in March was an excuse for an outdoor art tour, but we find something special about touring city art in the winter. Remember when it snowed on Christo and Jean-Claude's "Gates" in Central Park? We took a Saturday walk around downtown and spent a little time gazing and grazing, following a short list of new and old public art.

"Group of Four Trees" (Jean Dubuffet) at the base of the Chase building, financial district, which we followed with Financiers at a little bakery nearby. Not surprisingly, there were a lot of bankers coming in to work on a Saturday.

Picasso sculpture, "Portrait of Sylvette," at Silver Towers, the faculty housing at
NYU, which should take better care of it's treasures!
On the way there we ran into a college roommate on Bleeker Street, whom we haven't seen in 12 years.

Here's the "Balloon Flower" piece by Jeff Koons, right next to the entrance to the Path at the WTC.
Here is what you do with it:

Au revoir, Patois

2009-03-01T09:09:00.009+08:00

Whether loved or loathed, there's little question that the closing of Patois, one of the pioneers of the great Smith Street, comes with a tinge of lament.

When we moved to Brooklyn back in 2000, Smith Street was a fledgling Manhattan annex. There was Bar Tabac, the now famous Petanque battling ground, Bananania, perfecting the pork loin, Uncle Pho's, and a few others, but Patois was widely regarded as Smith Street's flagship restaurant, first in kind. The strip's higher end French bistro set the bar for what became one of New York's best bar and restaurant streets. And it is now gone. Au revoir, Patois...for now.

Back in '98, the NYTimes ran a prophetic article for the decade to come, two months after Alan Harding opened a new era on Smith. (full article here)

Up the block from Sal's is Patois, a French bistro that opened two months ago. With its red banquettes and tiled floors, it is the kind of new restaurant with an old look that is becoming popular in the East Village and SoHo. ''It's cool but neighborhood funky,'' the chef and part owner, Alan Harding, said through a plume of cigar smoke. ''We have the coolest restaurant in Brooklyn.''

It was always regarded for what it was, not really how it did it. (The food and service was as hit and miss as the hangover that drove you there.) It had attitude, and the brunch was always kickin' good. Back in 2006, we shot these few images for a Brooklyn feature in Budget Travel (here).

There is speculation about a reinvention of Patois across the street, but who knows, maybe elsewhere. There is no question anymore that Brooklyn owns its own now, and is much more than one street, one neighborhood, one style---I would quote Bono here, but Jessie would kill me.

Happy Mardi Gras!

2009-02-25T04:15:00.006+08:00

James just walked into my office offering a spatula full of goodness: "king cake cracklins," or icing, butter, and cinnamon that he scraped up from around the edges of the king cake he's making.

(Did you know I got to know this amazing man in a kitchen? Our first date was on the Saturday before Mardi Gras, 12 years back. We'd been working together 14 hour days for 2 weeks at a cafe right on the parade route near Louisiana Avenue. We decided to have a little fun before the season ended by closing up after the Saturday parades and heading down to the Marigny. When he walked me all the way home because the streetcars weren't running, I knew this might last past Lundi Gras.)

We're having some dear New Orleans friends over for dinner (all the way down from Park Slope :) There will be crawfish gumbo for dinner and great Mardi Gras mixes this year from Brent, and from years past from Kat and Alex (Oh ye Royal Duke and Duchess of Schweg, may I please have my copy of 2009?). I'm hoarding a big mason jar of doubloons I inherited that goes back to parades that rolled in 1969. They've got Abita at my local beerstore. So we're all set to laissez les bon temps rouler.

I feel like the Queen of Rex in exile.

Can't wait to go down for a long visit in March. We're gonna see Celeste shoot her own wedding, check out Cedric and Mia's contemporary art gallery AMMO, visit our peoples on Laurel street. Then I'll head to Monroe for a week with family. Call me then if you wanna hear me slide into my native accent.

Hope you all have a good gras, but if you're finding it hard to get your funky on, call us a little later on, and I'll see if I can't hook you up with a bowl of James's gumbo.

The new Standard in T+L

2009-02-24T01:11:00.004+08:00

1) An affordable hotel in Manhattan. 2) An affordable hotel in the Meat Packing District. 3) An affordable hotel in Manhattan in the Meat Packing District that makes you feel like Don Draper. 4) The same as above that straddles the one-day-in-the-future brilliant High line path.

Almost makes me want to be a tourist in NYC again... For now, I'll stick with Brooklyn.

For more picture and information, check out the March issue of Travel + Leisure, on newsstands!

And if that isn't enough, try going literally next door to DeBragga and Spitler, where some of the premiere beef aging in the city is housed....It is, in fact, the Meat Packing District.

Packing it in and out: Food Arts

2009-02-24T00:00:00.001+08:00

Once upon a time, the notion that the underpass around the South Street Seaport in Manhattan would smell less like seaport and more like South Street sounded as unlikely as...um..."fish for brains." But here we are, 2009, and the fins, bellies, and scales have all but completely vanished. And yet, 'round the island and up a bit, the Meat Packing District--fashionable, habitable, and tourable--is still the cities meat locker. Smells like it, looks like it, and acts like it. For now.

A while back, Food Arts sent us deep into the frozen corridors of DeBragga and Spitler to shoot an industry story on aged beef. Here's a bit of the journey and some of the story. (block text by Katy Keiffer) I'm still temped to find my way to one of the better steak restaurants in town and hunt for what's supposed to be a magical and palette-specific experience of eating some of the finest aged beef in the world. Although Jessie, a pesce-tarian for years, spent just as much time in the locker as me (see last image post), she won't be joining me.

With menus boasting steaks up to 75 days [aged] in some cases, this is not necessarily meat to everyone's taste. Nor does it fit every pocketbook. Highly aged beef is a very personal and individual choice. In the words of Craftsteak's [Tom] Colicchio, dry aged beef of over 45 days, can become, "finky, musty, very gamey." [....] The loss of volume through dry aging can be breathtaking. Marc Sarrazin of DeBragga and Spitler, a New York City supplier, says dry aged beef can lose as much as 15 percent of its weight, and up to 50 percent of its yield thanks to combined weight loss and the heavy trimming necessary to remove the most dessicated parts of the aged meat[....]
In the end, a steakhouse will survive on good meat and fail with bad. There is no hiding in this format, no matter how great the sauces and sides. According to Colicchio, the steakhouse trend will continue to thrive. "Why would it stop? Meat has always been, and always will be, a staple of the American diet." He ended the conversation with a tag line that the beef industry should pay him for: "When times are bad, people are going to splurge, and beef feels good."

Quite nearly the Gilbert and George of the Meat Packing District, Marc and George of DeBragga and Spitler are among the kings of the aging meat market in New York City. They supply among others Craftsteak and Soho House with meats aging anywhere from under a week to 42 days.

After hours in the cold and after photographing the engaging and likable meat-men under the tracks (the high line runs right above the entrance to DeBragga and Spitler), we got the final maceration-in-progress low down. Below, from left to right, are short loins aged 42 days, 14 days and 1 day.
Now, if only we could have packed a grill, smuggled in some charcoal, and turned off that huge drying fan swirling near-freezing temperatures at my partner.

Get thee to a steakhouse.

In the meantime, more from the Food Arts article can be found here: http://www.foodarts.com/Foodarts/FA_Feature/0,4041,385,00.html

January Travel Journal (4 of 4): Singapore

2009-02-15T02:05:00.009+08:00

(Destination: Singapore?)

City of Nights: Singapore comes alive at night. The temperatures drop to mild upper 70s after days of 90...many days...everyday in fact. Singapore sits right on the equator just at the tip of the Malaysian peninsula, so the days are warm and consistent all year round. The Harbor plays a huge role, when just around dusk locals and tourists both descend on the the downtown area, apparently with one thing on the mind---FOOD!

Two of my favorite experiences were had in each of Chinatown's two hawker centers. The hawker stands are like street food, but nationalized, celebrated, cheap, and made nearly perfect by government health regulations. In fact, there so good that going to a fancy restaurant really is just a luxury of ambiance. The first stop was at the Maxwell food center, a spur of the moment craving to sample the famed Chicken Rice of Singapore. Delicious. $2.50 for almost half a chicken and a mounded plate of perfect chicken-infused rice. It turns out that I happened to stumble upon the same Chicken Rice stand that Anthony Bourdain went to for his show on Singapore food (fun to watch and down-loadable on itunes.)

The second (above) was on the first night of the Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations. It was like a Chinese, foodie Mardi Gras! The place was packed, and the Fried Oyster and Eggs we devoured alongside a couple giant Tiger beers set us straight. More below.

We spent a lot of our time near the Quay, which was once a rambling and rambunctious fishing and trade port part of town, and was founded by the British for that. Since the 1950s or so, the shipping and fishing has left the heart of town, and a very young, and quite westernized CBD has risen up in its stead. But even there, and even in the heart of the very young convention center near the harbor, there always seems to be a delicious hawker center right around the corner!

(From left: break-time near Clark Quay, a party scene, a little like Bourbon Street, only more welcome--though I am sad to say that there is a Hooters; middle, cool nook of a hawker center near the convention center; right: Boat Quay and the central business district. Below, local skaters.)

January Travel Journal (3 of 4): Paris

2009-02-13T06:12:00.006+08:00

My priorities were pretty simple in Paris. Spend time with our favorite friends there, find a good traditional croque-monsieur for weekday lunch, see the Seine, and perhaps squeeze in a soccer game (watched Bourdeaux win over Paris in a great game).

Gray weather kept our camera packed away for the most part, that and good long dinners. The above is at the Bibliotheque Nationale. It reminds me a bit of Milan Kundera, and I haven't decided which I like best, the above version or the one below. (Perhaps a vote is in order on the comments page.) ‎The library hosted a pretty good exhibit "70' La Photographie Americaine" in their gallery. A bit more can be found here about the show. The show had an interesting collection of some of the majors like Arbus, Evans, Frank, Friedlander--Did anyone see that the Madonna photograph sold for twice it's expected price? It's amazing she was hired for $25 dollars for the photo shoot in '79 when she was strapped for cash--Mary Ellen Mark, Meatyard...And the show even had a Larry Fink image that looks a bit like an image PDN published in the '08 Photo Annual from his "My sexual safari" series.

A couple days later (and 2 croque-monsiers later), we made a quick stop by the Seine before leaving town.

Above, Xabi and Raphaelle, at the Seine. Below at home. (Two of our favorite subjects)

Some may have heard that much of France is a couple weeks into a strike against measures taken by Nicolas Sarkozy in the economy and in public works, including education. Both our friends are teachers in the French university system. We wish them well in their struggles.

Bonne Chance!

January Travel Journal (2 of 4): Belgium

2009-02-11T23:30:00.010+08:00

(Nothing like a few artists, an alleyway/parking lot, and a bucket of paint to make things look particularly Flem-hip)

Two hours in Brussels, -4 degrees Celsius, and a few rolls to burn. The Galleries in Brussels must be incredible in the summer, full of warm air and light. In this year's deep freeze, the open air mall-meets-ornate-train station was filled with swift moving pedestrians and stylish overcoats.

Above, a cool bar/cafe on Rue du Marché au Charbon; Sommer (below), at ArSene/50 sent us to the Charbon area to find the cool cafes. (Sorry we missed the dance party, Sommer!).

(Bellow: The grand golden plazas in the heart of Brussels, a gorgeous gallery/mall, and Bar Fontainas.)

Belgium was a stopping point on our journey to see Jessie's brother Andy, who is studying in Leuven and recently proposed to Quinn. Cheers to you both!

January Travel Journal (1 of 4): Maastricht

2009-02-10T05:15:00.015+08:00

(Destination: Masstricht?)

We arrived late in the small but super-dutch-chic Maastricht to find a frozen but happy town. (A good solid freeze can really wreak havoc on the train system in the area.) The hotel rooms were ablaze in red mood-light, a "big lip" sofa in the corner of the room, and out the window, a blend of industry, early 20th century hearths, and luminous rooftops. One could almost expect a shivering Ewan McGregor belting out some kind of musical while hanging from the moon.

Ah, the Netherlands.

Treaty of Maastricht, anyone?

Old-world Europe still reigns. I love shooting these old European towns in black and white. I can only assume the car was on loan for a film. Surely.

(The Meuse river bisects the town and feels a bit like crossing the Liffey each day. An old church in the center of town has been converted into one of the most inspiring bookstore/coffee shops ever.)

Too cold for trains, but the bicycles still work! I don't think the art of riding bicycles has been nationalized and perfected quite like this anywhere else in the world. Maybe, but the Dutch make it look so good.

(Clicking on the images will open a larger version of the pictures.)

Happy Holidays Home and Abroad!

2008-12-20T03:36:00.003+08:00

Jessie and James wish you the very best. Cheers to all and to all a new and fantastic year!
May '09 bring, among other things:

the magic bus
the enchanted tourist
the wishful thinking
and of course...many oysters and many cheers

PRINT SALE OPENS TODAY!

2008-12-01T23:46:00.002+08:00

As of this morning, our print sale "storefront" is open at our website.
Click on the tab "Print Sales" on the far right. We are offering 47 existing 11x14 prints for $40 each, including shipping. A holiday gift to our fans, while supplies last! Custom print options in several sizes are also available. We've put three pages of images up, so tool around and see if you see something you'd like, and we'll ship it out to you. I look forward to sending these pictures to their new homes.

Happy December!

It could be me

2008-11-15T00:12:00.003+08:00

We've taken part in Paul Paper's global art project. Check it out
Here's how Paul describes the project:

"Could be me" is a project exploring possibility of one artist occupying another's space. It is a visual adventure and an interpretation of the same sentence by different artists worldwide .

Hundreds of artists created a piece which incorporated the sentence: "It could be me but it's actually Paul Paper." The website on the other hand, is named, "It could be paul paper, but it's acutally ____." The best way to experience the piece is to click on the names on the left at random to see how other artists incorporate this other identity into their work. Illustrators rule.

Paul, a photographer who lives in Vilnius, Lithuania, contacted us out of the blue, and sent us some gorgeous moody postcards. We shot our contribution in Kate's backyard, because it's looking a little Gothic these days, with the sudden change in season.

Print Sale!

2008-11-14T02:33:00.004+08:00

Our portfolios change several times a year, to showcase our new work. We have four books of 40 pages each, and every couple of months, James spends a few days in the darkroom cooking up fresh images to show our clients. But we sigh that when a new picture goes in, and old favorite has to come out.

After four years of making pictures, we pulled box after box of prints off of the shelf, and found we had a seven inch tall stack of beautiful, archival prints stashed away! You'll notice some of these pictures still appear in our portfolio, but we discovered that we had more copies that we can use.

We saved one of each for ourselves and now we want to offer the rest of them to you at cost for $40 each. We have two or three copies of about 50 images available in 11x14. We will package and ship them off to you at no additional cost. We can even price having them framed and shipped by our local frameshop. Here's a taste:

We will be pleased as punch to see these pictures going out to their new homes!

We will launch a temporary online storefront where you can see and purchase pictures, just in case you want to add a little Morgan & Owens to your holiday shopping list. Keep an eye on this space announcing the opening day of the print sale, coming soon!

And as always, if there's a picture you love but don't see here, let us know by email and we'll print one up for you.

PDN video of the Jumbotron

2008-10-24T05:04:00.002+08:00

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1847329262/bctid1870975536

A bird, a plane? No, it's the Jumbotron

2008-10-22T09:12:00.012+08:00

Kodak has our "names in lights" on its Time Square Jumbotron!

(Yep, those are our names there! Sorry, we decided to play it "cool" and not drag our Mamiya out to Times Sq. with us. This is taken from our phone.)

We, along with our fellow PDN 30, will be cycling on the screen until Nov. 10. The cycle script begins: Kodak Celebrates the New Faces of Photography: PDN's 30 (or something pretty close to that). As the names slowly march up the screen, each coming to rest in the center, the names span out, and three or four images from the showcased photographer slide across the screen. It's quite nicely paced and shows a little peek into each of our work. We're in excellent company up there! One photo editor wrote to me giddily saying "...so cool."

We've been down to check it out; we've watched from several angles: From the infamous Planet Hollywood third floor bar--not exactly sure what it's infamous for, but it does remind me a little of a Biloxi casino (no offense, Biloxi); from the second and fourth floors of TGI Fridays--I'm beginning to feel a bit sorry for those who come to town and go to these places (pull it together people!); from the street--the middle, the side, the across-the-way (does the Naked Cowboy really do that everyday? Oh wait, now the NYPD men are posing for a picture with those women too.); and, our favorite, from walking underneath into the Marriott, which reminds me of all those hotels we've stayed in to get here--no, not the lovely beach cabanas and yoga retreats, or the lovely mountain lodges, or the lovely spas, the lovely design hotels, the lovely city centre apartment rentals...no, it's more like a giant airport hotel meets convention center.... Either way, it feels like adventure, and that feels good.

Below are the images we have gliding through Times Sq. as we speak.... I wonder if they can see it from space. :) The image in the upper left will be shown at a Kodak-hosted gallery show and reception on Thursday night as part of their PhotoPlus Expo. We've selected all of the images from our work with people. We love the places and things we photograph, but people make most of what we do happen.

Thanks, Kodak, for bringing us out!

Kodak Honors the PDN 30

2008-10-03T02:39:00.004+08:00

Kodak Honors the PDN 30 and yours truly with a gallery show in Chelsea, a few pictures on their jumbotron! We'll keep you posted...

Romantic Places

2008-10-01T01:04:00.002+08:00

One of our favorite editors contacted us for brainstorming a story on "make-you-fall-in-love-locations" that we've shot (Romance on a shoot? Who has time for that? :) or just found on vacation. James and I reminisced long and hard about it, so I figure I might as well share our personal "top romantic places" with you.

I think Budapest wins hands down for gorgeousness and romance: the cafes, the steam baths, the cheap restaurants, the nightlife, the young designers, the opera. We rented a beautiful apartment with three close friends and all ate too much strawberry soup and had daily massages. We'd love to go back, just the two of us and our Mamiyas.

Boulder Utah, a tiny town in the middle of Escalante NP. Lots of hiking and off-roading, which I think is devastatingly romantic. Just dusty me and James, and no one around for 60 miles. A little scary too, but risk and romance go hand in hand.

For the New England Bed & Breakfast set, I'd go with Castle Hill in Cape Cod. Just what it sounds like. Shot that one for T+L.

For the Bed & Beer set I'd go with the Shack Up Inn in Clarksdale, Mississippi. The delta town is probably too down on its luck for most, but you get to stay in a barely renovated tenet farmer's shack and sit on the porch all night playing the piano for the mosquitoes and cotton and go to sleep under homemade quilts. We like to stop there, eat catfish at Morgan Freeman's restaurant, dance at a jukejoint, buy some blues cds, before heading on to my family's place in Louisiana. A great place to acclimate to a slower pace. A little ways south of the Memphis airport. $50/night!

For the 18th century mansion set, I'd go with the Bellinter House in County Meath, Ireland we shot for Sherman's Travel. The redesign is sumptuous, with great huge wooden carved beds, a spa, a lovely, just slightly avant garde (think Oscar Wilde meets Bloomsbury meets Moss) bar in the drawing room, a Michelin chef's restaurant in the basement. Not a lot to do in the area, but fish and ride horses, but then, it's only 45 minutes drive to Dublin.

Amansala Tulum, and Tulum generally, are my favorite sit-around and relax white sand beaches. It's gorgeous, eco friendly, and cheap, if you like fish tacos. Who doesn't like fish tacos? Amasala's very yoga girl centric (i.e. not romantic). Most of the other women there were from NYC for "bikini boot camp." The downside is the long drive out there from Cancun.

I hear El Salvador's beaches are cheap cheap cheap, and we want to visit my family there asap. The South American Surf Championships are there at La Libertad this month. Dad and Kathy's new place is only a few hours from Belize, Honduras, daily flights to Costa Rica and Cancun. It would be a great place to base camp for shooting the area, so I'm researching the surf reports, working on my espanol.

Happy traveling!

Budget Travel Cover Shoot on Newstands now!

2008-09-17T00:39:00.003+08:00

A while ago I posted about our adventure down in New Orleans shooting the October cover with Amy and Amy from Budget Travel. It's on newsstands soon--be sure to grab one so the publishers/advertisers get the message that NOLA tourism sells!

The magazine had the subtitle on its way to the publishers before this year's storms came their way: "You thought a hurricane or two could keep this city down?" Stet!

We worked hard to make the cover authentic enough to be shot by a couple of ex-locals. Our hometown had to look instantly recognizable, but not cliche. A hot red dress helps in that department.

In T: New York Times Style Magazine this weekend!

2008-09-07T00:26:00.008+08:00

If you don't get the New York Times, and you want to see our take on the new scene B.E.L.T. "below the elevated train" in the burg, go to the website's interactive map.

If you get the magazine, flip to "hipster replacement" ha!

We each got stylin tee-shirts on this shoot: I'm wearing my Frenchie's tank top right now. Frenchie of Frenchie's Gym on 303 Broadway, a 67-year old Puerto Rican body builder, deserves a story in the Times all his own. You can see the old school, no nonsense, no a/c gym from the B.Q.E. He's been in there coaching and cajoling giant young men from the neighborhood to "Do it with Love!" since 1976.

Maybe you need to spend an afternoon with the "community organizers" down at Frenchie's, Mr. Rudy Giuliani.

Upper Michigan

2008-09-06T07:55:00.007+08:00

We missed the August issue of Travel + Leisure on the newsstands because we were shooting for T+L in Greece! But Wendy was kind enough to send it over on her busy last week at the magazine. So here you are, for us a blast from the past, our story on a tiny spit of land, the Keeweenaw Penisula, that juts into Lake Superior.

Our favorite memories from this trip are represented by these two photos. The clouds zip in and out of the sky at a trippy stop-action speed. Lake Superior is so large it creates its own weather. And the five monks who live at the Society of St. John's Poor Rock Abbey Jampot make the most divine wild strawberry jam. They bake breads and hunt for wild strawberries and make jams--even while fasting--even in the snow--and are by far the most joyous subjects I've yet to encounter.

PS: The Jampot has an online shop! Just a taste: here's what you get in Seasonal Selection #1: "Contains twelve jars, one each of Wild Thimbleberry, Wild Blueberry, Blackberry-Cherry, Apricot-Raspberry, Brandied Peach, and Black Cherry Jams; of Wild Apple- Chokecherry, Wild Crabapple, Pear-Cinnamon, Dandelion, and Wild Sugarplum Jellies; and of Grape Butter." $60.00

Tearsheets are bigger on the website!

Pig Roast!

2008-09-04T04:55:00.002+08:00

This weekend, Sean Stanton is hosting his fifth Annual Pig Roast in Great Barrington. We met Sean years ago when he let us borrow his dog for a cover shoot, then selflessly invited us (and the model) back to the farm for fresh blueberries, eggs, milk, and tomatoes of all descriptions. The Volvo broke down and he ferried us back to the hotel. Sean farms for Dan Barber of Blue Hill among others, and has a little chef cult following I'm happy to be included in. We attended in 2006:

So if you're going to be near GB next weekend, stop by and say hello for me! 205 North Plain Road, from 4 to 8pm. No piglets will be roasted!

Apple Picking!

2008-09-04T02:57:00.001+08:00

Can you believe it's technically fall already? Last year we spent September in Utah, Arizona, Colorado, Oklahoma: places where fall takes time coming.

We photographed Susie Otts and her teens apple picking in Sharon, CT early last October for Everyday with Rachel Ray, and then joined a talented team in the studio in NYC to photograph the recipes.

Here's shots from the orchard:

We went to the Ellsworth Hill Orchard and Berry Farm twice last fall to stock up on apples and golden raspberries.

Here's the 6 page story in the magazine, on newsstands now. Click through to our tearsheets page on the "official" Morgan & Owens site to see bigger versions. James revamped the tearsheets page last month to make room for all these big stories coming out. Whoo-hoo! Look at how many photos they used! I think this story challenges the record holder, the April 07 Budget Travel Brooklyn feature, for most images per page. Everyday has great, photo-friendly design.

The recipes are pretty good too. Try the chili.

The Sixth Borough?

2008-09-03T23:25:00.002+08:00

I've just posted notes from our feature shoot last weekend in Philly at the other blog I write for occasionally A History of New York.

We were in Philadelphia for a few days while shooting a feature for Budget Travel. While we were there we did a little extra-curricular cheering for Obama at a gathering in Independence Park, test-tasted the local iced coffee, and imagined what it would be like if we lived there instead of here. My dear departed friend Peter Ryan used to live there, so it has a little soft spot in my heart. We used to repeat his refrain, "Philly's dope. Everyone just skates and hangs out" whenever he'd mention the name of his hometown. Needless to say, we had a great time shooting this feature, and look forward to seeing the story "25 things we love about Philadelphia" when it comes out April 09.

London

2008-08-24T06:06:00.001+08:00

On the other hand, the pound is falling....

I Heart NY

2008-08-24T04:48:00.001+08:00

Today we rode our bikes from Brooklyn to Central Park and back again, thanks to Mayor Bloomberg's latest trick, Summer Streets. Today from 7am to 1pm, Park Avenue was closed to cars, and packed with all manner of wheels. There were pedestrians too, but I think the freedom of riding up the avenue got the best of biker courtesy. NYC is a pedestrian's town everyday, but for a few hours on only three Saturdays, it was ours.

Please sir, can we have some more?

Maybe just one north/south avenue, all the time? OKay, I know that's asking a lot, but the cars get every road, every day. If we can't have a whole avenue, how about more lanes like the new one on Ninth Avenue?

We saw so much city. I finally saw the Bethesda Fountain. We rode bikes in Central Park. We rode down the West Side highway (which James does every time he takes film to Aporia, but it was my first). We stopped for a few minutes in front of James's old office on 32nd street, from the first year we lived here, and while there, ran into an acquaintance we haven't seen in a year.

The best part, by far, was riding straight up the face of the Grand Central Station, and then around the back, on the taxi route.

My usual bike commute has one tricky part, on Centre Street from the Brooklyn Bridge to below Spring street. The whole route was car free, and took half as much time, zero stress, and much joy.

My friend/academic adviser/bike mentor Bryan Waterman calls the experience "that gentle post-apocalyptic feeling." It was a trip.

Bryan and Cyrus R. K. Patell have invited me to contribute to the History of New York blog. I've written my first entry today, on Woody Allen. I taught the Writing New York course with them at New York University these past two spring semesters, and loved every minute (not spent grading). Now that I'm not teaching, I'm thrilled to have a new outlet for my New York crush. Check it out.

Jessie

Food

2008-08-20T00:39:00.001+08:00

I'm starting to notice a pattern in our posts. I talk about food a lot.

We don't eat a lot while we're still working cause both of us get food coma sugar crash 45 minutes later and have to be mightily persuaded to go running after a shot. So it's a light lunch and coffees at four.

But dinner is another story: I love sitting down to dinner with James at the end of the day, to talk about all the people we met, and what we're going to shoot the next day, and all the crazy things that happened on location or on the road. Like that time the poor woman's suitcase started vibrating at baggage check--that really happened--or the time that rental car agent in Pula locked up his office and came with us to have a beer while we signed contracts and talked about global warming and the disappearance of the bees.

It's relaxing and makes sense, since there are two of us and we need to take some time out to confirm what we got, and what we don't got for the story at hand.

And then after dinner James takes me out looking for night shots. Romantic, right?

So I've got this rolling roladex in my head: where to eat in.... I get most of this information from magazines we shoot for, their shootlists, and I search the websites of budget travel (great printouts!) , travel + leisure, the new york times before we go, and I check chowhound on my phone if I'm really stuck on where to eat in say, Tulsa. I also keep a journal, so I know where to go next time, or if I happen to be in court (don't ask) and the guy sitting next to me waiting for his turn at the bench once lived in Budapest, and he's got tips for me. So ask me if you need a recommendation, or have one for me. I want to eat local everywhere we go, not because it's better for the planet (since, let's be honest, after the 12 flights we took last month, there's an an endangered ice shelf with our name on it) but because if you don't eat the food, you're not really there.

PS: here's what to eat if you find yourself in Istria --
Bottle of Malvazija
Grilled Squid to start
Bronzini, traditionally served with swiss chard and potatoes
Pasta with truffles
local sheep cheese plate

Domino Loves Chicago (and so do we)

2008-08-19T23:58:00.000+08:00

Tearsheets time: we've followed Domino's columnists to Chicago to check out the shopping and wine scenes. In last month's issue, we fought ice, snow and thieves (that subtitle: "Rita Konig suggests a GPS" is a little inside joke: hers was stolen from our car while we were shooting one of these locations. Avis rental car theft insurance does not pay for a stolen GPS, btw.) For this month's issue: we went back to Chicago a month later, and had another one of those lovely sandwiches at Lovely, and another cannoli at Pasticceria Natalina in Andersonville, oh, and shot a story on wine with Cynthia Kling. One page two: the photogenic staff of Domino!

One of the best perks of this gig was that we got got to sit in on Don Sritong 60-minute wine class too: "The best wine for you is the wine you like best!" I wish that were true (I have expensive tastes), but I learned to grow beyond my old method: to buy wines from places you've been only works so well. Case in point: Croatian Malvazija is absolutely delicious. But, they sell only one bottle at Astor Place Wines. So you are a little limited on choice there. Guess I have to go back.

Or figure out where the Croatians of New York hide the good stuff.

Pictures of us in Istria

2008-08-19T10:32:00.000+08:00

I know what you really want to see: more pictures of us. Well here you go. Please vote in the comments section for your favorite contributors photo, just in case. At the base of the church above Piran, Slovenia:

Here's Jessie in Groznjan, a gorgeous artist and musicians village in the mountains. When the town was deserted in the 70s, the government gave it to the artists to use, for free. Now, a tourist destination. Ah, communism.

This one I took of James just after he came down from the tower of St. Euphemia church in Rovinj. The tower had just well-worn two by fours that wrapped all the way up. Thankfully, our next location was a lovely little restaurant.

Here's James again, at an ice cream parlor on the main square (an oval really) in Piran right after we wrapped the last roll.

New Orleans

2008-08-14T02:00:00.000+08:00

We're back, and we've just finished our laundry! And the captioning/editing should be all done by tomorrow. I wanted to keep you all updated from the road, but we decided that since the writers, especially the lovely Eleni Gage, had done such a good job researching and living these locations, to talk too much about them here would be an injustice, and of course, show up my miserable lack of editorial skills.

When we got back from Greece at Newark we stopped by home, dropped off our film, spent the night with our cats and turned right around and went to New Orleans for a cover shoot with Budget Travel. We had a great time comparing sweat patterns with the Amys while scouting, shooting, and eating eating eating. Our old friend Celeste helped out on set, we got to see Kat on her 35th birthday, and saw my brother as he left his home there for a new one in Belgium. Andy said with a big grin when he joined us at lunch at Cochon that I was "there in New Orleans when he got there and there when he left," "I've just been keeping it warm for you," he said, awhhhh (he's been doing a good job: it's got to be 100 degrees there).

It was funny being back in New Orleans again. It's been since New Year's 2007 since we've been back, and well, it's home only in the nostalgic, genealogical, and expositional tenses. To know us you have to know we're from there, but after eight years, I'm from New York too. I've almost lost the accent and become accustomed to the speed of life here in the Big City, but not enough far gone not to sigh and admire the easy place we're from.

We ran into people too: old bosses, classmates (shout out to Dick and Jenny's now run by Leigh Peters from photojournalism school and is just so fantastic), and got to hang with Leslie Parr and Ralph Adamo, our photo-mentor and favorite poet.

Notes on Greece

2008-08-14T01:54:00.000+08:00

Speaking of Andy, while we were in Epiros, photographing a 14th Century monastery that perilously overhangs an endless gorge, I sent him a message, because as a backpacker I knew he'd dig the place. I sent him detailed coordinates of the hiking trail so he'd be able to look it up in google earth. No need. He was there with my dad a few years ago. They hiked the Vikos Gorge, stood just where we stood over the precipitous gap in the earth, and never told me about it. My dad was stationed in Albania at the time, so it's not a stretch geographically, but you gotta know that feeling when you look on a corner of the earth with awe, is a feeling too exotic for seconds.

James just made us an at home version of something we drank in Greece nearly continuously: the cafe freddo (which is Italian), but the locals drink a cafe frappe, made with nescafe and espresso, I think, blended like a milkshake with ice. Why don't we have these in New York!? The pitiful ice coffees from our local place just don't have that kick, or the cute straw. If anyone knows where I can get one here, let me know! James made a spinach pie that was good too, but it didn't have those 11 other herbs and greens from Epiros that makes a real pita. Thank goodness all our stores here carry Greek yogurt, or I might have missed my flight home.

In a meeting a few months ago I told a photo editor who asked us where we'd like to go, off the top of my head I said that we'd love to shoot a story on Greek food. The universe conspires... We keep a map of the world in my office, and a few years ago we started to put pins in the places we'd like to see next. We got five pins each. Out of those original ten places, we've already been to half. We moved 5 pins to new locations, and yesterday, we got to move the Greece pin to...Costa Rica. FYI: there's pins still in Buenos Aires, Mont St. Michel, Antigua, the Azores, New Zealand...

We learned a valuable lesson in Greece: another use for Polaroids. When there's a language barrier, we memorize the phrase: May we take your picture? (in greek, phonetically: Moo eh-pee-TREH-peh-teh na sass PA-ro fo-to-ghraf-EE-ah?) Everyone says yes, but it is a concession, a gift these subjects give us that allows us to do our job. We began taking an extra polaroid of the shot and giving it to them, the only thing we have to give as a gift to them in return. Never in my life as has something so simple been met with such joy! Giggles, smiles, profuse handshakes. It's fun to watch them pour over the shot with their friends, put it away carefully to take home. Medium format polaroid is gorgeous as most of you know, and not to brag, but the people we photograph seem pretty excited about how good they look. The beauty and generosity of these strangers who let us take their picture! It was a powerful daily reminder of the sheer power of the medium we have chosen to communicate through.

Istria, Bonn, Epiros

2008-07-15T03:59:00.000+08:00

We're off on a summer shoot adventure: first to Croatia to photograph the Istrian penisula, then a weekend with James's brother Michael and his wife Rebecca in Bonn, Germany, and then an adventure in northern Greece (where Byron once lost a pair of slippers).

I'll be posting updates on our our adventures here. I feel I know what to expect, since we've been to Albania, right next to Greece, and on the same coast as Istria.

I should know better than to try to visualize a shoot before it is in front of me. Everywhere has its surprises.

Here's our dates:

In bookstores now!

2008-07-15T03:46:00.001+08:00

Remember that lifestyle book we styled and photographed with Robyn Moreno last year? Practically Posh is now available from Harper Collins. We're going to miss the release party, but can't wait to see the final product. Browse the book:

Robyn writes that her style guide is for "daring dames who refuse to be slowed down by life's practicalities," who "let ingenuity and attitude be your currency." Is this you? Get a copy on Amazon.

And yes, on the first of our 9 shoot days together, we did get her naked. :)

Art Networks update

2008-07-14T04:16:00.000+08:00

This is a current map of our ART NETWORK. I've talked about the project here as we went along with this work in progress. We've designed a central location to access pictures of each of the subjects and their connections to one another. At the site, click on each image to access a few selects from these shoots.

We begin by photographing an artist in their studio preparing for a show. At the end of each session we ask our subjects: Who should we photograph next? In other words, who inspires you, collaborates with you, and influences your work? In this way we hope to document a network of art practice and admiration, and to document the creative flow that keeps us all going.

Shaun El C Leonardo is performing his latest piece "Bull in the Ring" at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, in October as part of the show Hard Targets-Masculinity and American Sports. For more information, or to RSVP for the private performance on the 8th, get in touch with him through his website.

Shaun recommended earlier this spring that we should go to Athens to photograph an artist in residence there. At that time we had no plans to go there, but James turned to me and said, "Well, it looks like we've got to go to Greece." And here we are a few months later, packing for a trip with a few extra days in Athens! I sure hope this new artist's schedule accommodates two strangers pointing lights in his face two weekends from now.

Makes you think those "positive thinking" folks might be on to something, right?

On newsstands now!

2008-07-11T21:56:00.001+08:00

Last September we photographed Travers at Saratoga, one of the lead up horse races to the Derby. We'd never been to a horse race before--our first time out there, having press passes that got you right up along the rails was pretty awesome. This is the jockey that won the Kentucky Derby last year! We had a lot of comments from the regular horserace photogs with their big rigs, but by the end of the day we had made some brothers-in-arms (it was hot!!) earned a little R-E-S-P-E-C-T and we certainly learned a few things. I can still hear the thundering and smell the horses when I look at these pictures again.

Check "A Day at the Races" out in the August issue of Everyday with Rachel Ray or on our tearsheets page. Thanks to Gina, Rachel, and the ladies in the photo department for a great assignment.

Families and Photography

2008-07-10T00:24:00.000+08:00

Both of us have had the opportunity this month to shoot in front of our families, James with his dad in Kansas, and the both of us in Monroe, Louisiana at a slew of family events: birthdays, a baptism, and a wedding.

I'm not the only shooter in my family: my stepfather Tim (that's him with my mom) gave me my first camera, a Pentax K-1000, and took the time to show me how to shoot, develop, and print in the darkroom he maintained in the hall closet. My cousin Sarah shoots for the Army. A friend of the family, Mey-ling is just starting her love affair with the camera. Our Mamiya always draws a crowd of admirers, though not as big a crowd as my baby niece Emma.

In both of our families, we are the only professional artists. But we are not the only ones to run our own business, or even run our own businesses as a couple (my parents taught me all about that too), or take risks on earning a living doing what you want to do with your days. Our family's collective resumes are testament to at least trying to define work as play (i.e.: fly-fishing store, scuba-diving shop, restaurants on St. John and at a ranch in Arizona, the boomerang man, and at least 4 employees of the girl scouts). Right now, among my cousins, there's a few band members making their first cd, a pilot giving lessons, and quite a few dreams in drawers waiting for the right moment and real estate. We've come a long way from the pioneers in South Dakota my grandmother grew up with but we're keeping alive their penchant for big moves.

So there were a number of around the table conversations about what we do for a living, how we survive in New York, how it "works."

"Do they really just email you a shootlist like on Charlie's Angels?"
"Can you pitch a story on _____?
"You still use film?"
"Are you going to give up teaching?"
"Does the magazine pay your expenses?"
"How do you get jobs?"
"Does this mean you can never leave New York?"
"How will you have children?"
"Don't you ever wish you could write the stories too?"
"How much does it pay?"
"Can you shoot X's wedding?"

I wish I could say I have answers for all of these questions. Some of them, we do have pat answers for. Yes, it is like Charlie's Angels, yes, we use film, but do digital too when we need to, I'm taking a year off teaching, but I love it and will definitely return to the classroom when the time is right. We only shoot for the weddings we love.

The questions I don't have a ready answer for really get me thinking and talking over the iced tea. Creative careers, parenthood, technology, the economy: these don't seem to have road maps. Every time I visit my grandmother (who turned 80 this weekend!) pats me on the hand and reminds me that what we're doing with our lives always turns out to be the right thing to be doing.

So thanks for all your advice. I'm forever all ears!

In NYC one week

2008-07-07T10:44:00.000+08:00

We've had a wonderful time here in Louisiana, but it's time to come home and pack for Croatia. So we're flying back to Brooklyn tomorrow, and we want to see everyone before we head out!

Chicago for Domino

2008-06-16T11:49:00.000+08:00

We shot Chicago's shopping (and pastry!) scene this month's Domino Magazine with their fabulous columnist Rita Konig. Follow the link for the listings, but for the pictures, you're going to have to buy the magazine!

We're finishing up another story for the magazine tomorrow, so if you need an excuse to subscribe...

Summertime Already?

2008-06-12T12:09:00.000+08:00

A month has gone by while we've been busy shooting, teaching, and learning Spanish. The little bit I've learned in my six-week intensive course has already given us so much--portraits, places, access--that we could never have talked our way into with hand gestures. I'm going to do my homework one of these days, so ¡Ojo!

We've added a new artist to our Art Project: Shaun El C. Leonardo. This triple threat: painter, sculptor, and performance artist was introduced to the Network by Alejandro Almanza Pereda. He's at work on his next piece "Hard Targets - Masculinity and American Sports" for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. You can view more from this shoot here. Kodak has generously supplied us with a case of film to keep this project going, and we have two more artist portraits here in New York coming up this month.

Finally, with the talented, imaginative, and patient designer Sandra Garcia, we have been re-designing our logo and promo cards. Drop us a note if you want us to send you one when we ship 'em out next week.