Category: Photography

The Beautiful Buzz

ASinwoodsTwo weeks ago today, Sweetheart and I got married. I’ve been feeling like one of those old fashioned towers of champagne glasses, where the top one bubbles up, full to its very brim with joy to the overflowing and then it’s a giddy cascade of beauty and glittery light all the way to the bottom. And repeat. I’ve thrown parties before and I know what a great party feels like and our wedding was a. great. party. But I couldn’t have ever known how the wedding part of it would make me feel because holy moly who could ever know? How to even begin to describe it? As a lover of words I’ve been searching for both a way to put into language this giant feeling, this overcoming overflowing, this electric joy and abundant love that at once floats our little boat and also eddies around us like a current…but I also kind of don’t want to put it into words. Like: I don’t want to name it or to look directly at it, it’s too bright or maybe it might be too fleeting…it is at once a giant thing of celestial proportions and also something small and private like a delicate clockwork. Something to shout? Something to hold dear above all else like a fluttering bird against your beating heart? Something to whisper oh-so-quietly about in the half-dark with the leaves finally coming down against the tin roof? All of the above? Fortunately for me, since I can’t even really begin to explain it in words, my dear sweet cousin Charlotte (who is a brilliant filmmaker in addition to being an excellent human, lucky me) shot the day on film with an old super 8 camera. She made this movie for us (with help from her own sweetheart, Jesse), and it says absolutely everything I can’t even begin to speak. It is perfect. You watch it, and I’m going to go and let my heart explode. Again.

SUSANNAH & ANDREW from Charlotte Hornsby on Vimeo.

First picture taken by the incredibly talented and dear Kate Reeder who has an eye like an eagle and a heart like a unicorn. More to come.

Advertisement

The Novo Project

I’m loving the divine Miss Mia’s newest endeavor, The Novo Project. Mia is one of those magnetic souls, a student of the possibilities and the positive, a gatherer of beauty and feathers and magic. She’s one of those rare people who seems to burn a bit brighter and hotter than most everyone else- but not in a consumptive way, in the best way, the way that casts light and shadow, that shows a relief of what is and a glimpse of what could be. So, when she says that her Novo Project “will be sharing stories, profiles, and images that are tender / wise / outrageous courageous / quirky / beautiful / insightful of–––authors / artists / designers / educators / healers / athletes…etc.”, I’m inclined to stop whatever I’m doing and listen. Check it out here.

ps. I can’t get over how much Mia looks exactly like her mama here.

Amelia, it was just a false alarm

There’s a marvelous post on the New York Times photography blog, Lens, about women aviators taking to the sky at the dawn of aviation. Shall we call them aviatrices? Their fabulous stories, daring adventures, and frequent epic disasters are almost as romantic and swoon-worthy as their outfits. Poppy Wyndham (née Elsie Mackay), above, became a vaudeville actress against her father’s wishes and ran away with a fellow actor, scandalizing society- she perished in her plane attempting to cross the Atlantic.

Ruth Elder, who named her plane “American Girl”, was divorced by her husband, who claimed she “caused him many sleepless nights by her transatlantic flight attempt and much embarrassment in New York when she failed to kiss him upon her return”. She, like most good ladies, also packed a mean picnic for her transatlantic flights with lots of coffee and sandwiches. She had to bail out over the Azores, but was rescued by a steamer.Beulah Unruh, below, was a New York City waitress who got her license out on Long Island (she probably flew in and out of Governors Island and Floyd Bennet Field). She estimated that her pilot’s license (and those amazing knee high socks) cost her about 13,000 tips.Such a wonderful place to put your mind, to think about the frictionless allure of sky-bound women taking to the heavens in icy altitudes. See the whole piece here.

Childlike Wonder pt. 1

I’m not sure if it’s on purpose, coming from me- if I’m drawing a feeling of awe out of the air like a lightning rod or if there has been extra beauty latent in the world as of late and I’m drawn to it like a open-mouthed moth to a flame of awesomeness. Either way, I really feel like the past few weeks have been full of wonder. This is a hard thing to come by, so needless to say it’s been pretty great. Is it that we’re too tired usually to look around? Is it that the world is extra-lovely when it tilts its orbit to squeeze the last bit out of fall? I went to Dumbo to see the Creators Project and poke around and I simply could not get over how beautiful everything was. It was ever so marvelous a feeling.

Sitting in Front of a Fan

Hey Legs, looking good. Nice and Cool.

How marvelous is this? On the right: an iconic Gil Elvgren pinup painting. On the left: the photograph that inspired it. See more wonderful shots here. If you scroll through them, you’ll see that the model is always the same, it’s Elvgren’s wife. How divine.

I’m sitting in front of a fan too today.

1974 please.

The best thing in the whole world is when you look around and it may or may not be 1974. The second best thing in the world is when it is also summertime when that happens. It’s here. It’s fabulous. It’s time for adventures.

ps. (1974- put on your earmuffs) what is the best photo processor for Android? I used to tape a piece of napkin over the lens of my nokia, but now we’re grownups.

Vivian Maier=Robert Frank+Lady-Sartorialist

Get this: a man purchases a box of random photo negatives at an auction, inside finds the work of Vivian Maier, an unknown Chicago street photographer. The images turn out to be starkly beautiful, sometimes sensational like Weegee (but quietly, almost accidentally), full of humor and honesty and humanity. The whole story is wonderful, and I simply can’t stop looking at these photographs:

See more pictures here.

%d bloggers like this: