Father Daughter Ball

What a rich time I had as a newspaper photographer in Norfolk, Va. Remembering a military father/daughter ball I covered last June. What joy.

Oakland Days

On assignment for KQED, I got a chance to celebrate the advent of summer in the Bay Area. I hear it's gonna start getting hot one of these days . . . 

Memorial

Last year I photographed the memorial service for Staff Sergeant Justin Johnson, who was killed in Bagram, Afghanistan on June 18, 2013. 

The service was held at Fort Eustis and we were asked to keep our distance from the family, which is a caution I normally adhere to. I feel deeply uncomfortable meddling in other people’s lives without their express permission and invitation, which is perhaps why I’m not the most successful hard news photographer. After the service ended, I went to find the public affairs person to check on the spelling of a name of someone I photographed, and saw this adorable little boy. I made the picture and then asked if they wouldn’t mind sharing their names; Justin Johnson Jr., 3, lost his dad and Staff Sergeant Willie Foster lost a friend.

There is something about this moment— about the continuity of love even after death, and about the sweetness of a strong uniformed man giving comfort to a friend’s son. I think there should absolutely be privacy in grief (read David Woo’s account of photographing memorial services for some real insight) but I don’t regret seeing and sharing this moment.

Passion Fruit Curd: Chapter One

We're getting ready for a huge Easter brunch at Cait's house in Kigali, Rwanda, and after a trip to the market and a haul of fruits and veggies, the first thing on the prep list is passion fruit curd. Cait's adapting the recipe from 101 Cookbooks to suit the local fruit here. Between the homemade english muffins and pork sausage we're working on today, it's a weekend of cooking and it feels just like home.

From the beach

Traveling with friends through South Africa, with a few nights spent at the beach in Kommetje, we would wake in the mornings and take walks along the beach. As a gift to everyone at the end, and especially my friend Cait, we gathered all the things we found and arranged them. Traveling light (in all the areas of my life) is a real value. The dream: a small bag with jeans and a few tank tops, a toothbrush, a beautiful dress and some heels, and my camera. The dog, of course, if we're in the Jeep. This was the best way for me to take some of the beauty of the trip and share it. I love friends who enjoy curating the world as much as I do.

Setting Sail

Here are the things I remember about the Coast Guard Eagle— the first day they put us in harnesses so we could learn to climb the foremast as the crew and students aboard set, maneuvered, and furled the sails. The sea was so rough by the third day that some students clipped themselves to the sides so they wouldn’t fall overboard as they were throwing up. This was taco day, so I had all the tacos I wanted. That the captain was a quintessential captain, whose favorite part of the day was clearly teaching the students celestial navigation. The fundamentals. And this dawn at sea, with a young sailor looking out across the Atlantic. And me, looking and him looking. That’s the very best part of the job.

Traveling now through Rwanda and South Africa, I remember all the other travels in my life. There’s lots of time for thinking. From Guatemala alone when I was in my early twenties to up in helicopters for the newspaper, to now, I find the more situations I’m in, the easier it is to maneuver through all of them. And that open skies and spaces allow the reorganization of experiences in my mind. So now, things that happened over the past year, are slowly starting to make sense. So here’s to setting sail!

Home in Rwanda

These last three months I've imagined myself as one of those English ladies, spending the season as a guest in a series of wonderful country homes-- from Connecticut to California and now this magical house in Rwanda, which will be a quick home base before a road trip through South Africa with some of my oldest friends. It turns out that there is a profound comfort in showing up at someones house and effortlessly finding a home there makes life on the road less of an exile and more of a fluid adventure. Things that stay the same: warm sweaters and painted nails and bad rap music and great food, always. It's a real gift to step out of regular life for a moment, to be reminded that there are places in every corner of the world where the people that love you stay the same.

Pig, sleeping.

Looking through some of my food photography over the last year, I am nostalgic for the incomparable Lorraine Eaton, one of the most fun writers to work with, period. From a project on chefs and their knives to the nearly impossible-to-make-look-appetizing souse, I miss the people in my old newspaper life the most. Here's to finding new collaborators in the civilian world. . .

I'm staying in a beautiful house right now, and there are so many surfaces that are just asking to be photographed. Like this bowl with this half dozen duck eggs . . .

Purple Season

It seemed like everything at the market today had this rich, amazing purple in it. 

In the JFK airport this morning I read an account of Peter Lanza's new life, since the day in December 2012 when his son Adam killed his own mother, himself, and twenty-six people at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Andrew Solomon writes that, for Lanza "It’s strange to live in a state of sustained incomprehension about what has become the most important fact about you."“But it’s real,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be understood to be real.”' I think we all have moments like that-- real, incomprehensible moments that can't ever be explained.

It's been a heck of a year-- a hard-hitting year, a year of huge changes that split my heart open and made me even more empathetic than I ever thought possible. A rich year, a sad year, where the world suddenly became a much bigger place. I left my job at the Virginian-Pilot, with the greatest photographers in the newspaper community, for a chance to go after some big projects and personal dreams. I broke up with a great love and packed it all up, dog and all, to move west with friends and try out a new life. I'll be in San Francisco for the next year or so, and I'll be back on the blog-- thanks to Katie Barnes for bugging me about it. Please don't be a stranger-- I've really missed it here. There's so much to share from the last year. I'm excited to get started. . .