January 31, 2008

portrait for Kripalu publication

This week I was invited into the studio of knitwear designer and actress Karen Allen.

Kripalu's upcoming issue of our development magazine, Puranam, will include an article about Karen. Karen has taught yoga at a studio she founded in Great Barrington and teaches weekend-long knitting workshops at Kripalu.

You can see Karen's beauitful work on her store's website.





The scarf she's wearing in this photo she was just finishing on the machine in the above photos.

January 16, 2008

today's portrait session

Today I had the pleasure of photographing a charming and radiant woman at Kripalu. Vandita, who is the Director of the Kripalu Yoga Teachers Association (KYTA).

KYTA does wonderful work including giving grants to yoga teachers to work with populations who typically do not have access to holistic health practices including at-risk teens, people living with HIV, and pregnant teenagers, to name a few.

You can learn more about KYTA on their site, and see some rough edits from Vandita's shoot below.

Yoga teachers can sit like this so easily.




January 9, 2008

monk documentary


Since 2005 I have been working on a documentary about an urban monastery in Boston, the Little Brothers of Saint Francis. The project began as a semester-long assignment for a documentary photography class at Emerson College.

In the first few months of working with the Brothers I was endlessly impressed and inspired by their way of life. After completing my school assignment, which was to create 20 black & white prints, I became compelled to tell a more comprehensive story of their community and way of life.

I am in post-production on a still-image film which combines photographs with audio of the Brothers. I have developed over 2,000 traditional black & white negatives and recorded 40 hours of audio of interviews, prayer, chanting, and conversation. My vision is to combine these into a feature-length film. Currently, I am making a teaser to create a sense of how the images and audio will interact.

Once I complete the teaser I will apply for grants and appeal to individuals for financial support to finish the documentary. There will be more information on a forthcoming website dedicated to the project. If you'd like to be notified once the site is up, or updated about the process of the documentary, follow this link to sign-up for my mailing list.

See the original 20 photographs on my website.
Visit the Brothers' website.

Below are photos from the interview process.

Brother Labre holds the front door.

Brother Didacus during his interview.

Brother Giles during his interview.

Brother James reaches into his habit-pocket.

Brother Joseph during his interview.

Brother Labre during his interview.

I also interviewed a few of the Brothers' friends, including their neighbor Leonorah.

Brother Didacus holds his rosary.

January 3, 2008

this morning

When you live in the Berkshires, your morning drive to work can look like this.

This is where I work.



Cherry trees by the parking lot.


Just outside my office door.

January 2, 2008

Christmas with family

I just spent Christmas with my family. Here are some pics from my visit.

Christmas day, we set-up a web cam so we could see my brother in Korea open gifts with his wife.

Grandpa having coffee.

Games with the laser-pointer.

Grandpa telling war stories and David listening intently.

Using little sister to break-down the fort.

Wheeeeeeeeee!

Aunt Mo & Uncle Roger watch at a safe distance.

How many monkeys can fit on one sled?

debut post!

Hello friends and future-friends. Welcome to my first ever blog!

Recently I created a website to display some of my photo work. I've never had a formal portfolio before and selecting the images was an odd and painful process. How does one represent all the faces of her work? Or rather, which faces are the most important to show?

Often there are images that I enjoy, and they seem worth sharing, but are not fit to represent myself with. So, I decided to start this blog as a casual way of sharing photos that I take. And I suppose it may create a sort of story about myself and my relationship to photography. My intention is to post at least once a week and always include recent images.

If this seems interesting to you, stay tuned and check back often.


Here's a randomly-selected picture to start off with. It's from a cathedral in Europe.