Big River

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!

Blissed out Bali! On Newstands

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

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

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!

Wishing you happy holidays

& a year full of blessings.

Off to Bali!

Love,

Jessie and James

Conference Paper on John Thomson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.