Just put to bed: this little baby . . . the Mothering 2011 calendar.
Once again, we’ve found some really stunning photos by many of our favorite photographers. Keep an eye out for it, or preorder yours here.
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Calendar cover photo of photographer Stephenie Dame (yes, I said “of”), whose work you may have seen in our pages recently (and whose mom was operating the camera this time).
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Tags: calendar, mothering 2011 calendar, stephenie dame
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I’m deviating a little here
from the usual Mothering topics, though photography is a big part of my world, so bear with me. . .
I read a heartening post yesterday by James Estrin on the New York Times blog Lens: “If Photojournalism Is Dead, What’s Luceo?” —which he wrote in response to a post by NB Pictures founder Neil Burgess, “For God’s Sake, Somebody Call it.”
Estrin sings the praises of the young (started up in 2007) photo coop, Luceo Images, which sure seems to be alive and well. And sure seems to be doing—quite beautifully—what most of us call photojournalism. Here’s a noteworthy quote from the Lens piece:
“It is absolutely ridiculous to say that photojournalism is dead,” Mr. Banks [David Walter Banks, of Luceo] said. “It’s definitely changing, but I think that’s exciting. The modes of delivery and consumption are changing, but there’s a lot of great work being done. ”
Check out Estrin’s post here.
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Photo above, taken by Luceo Images’ Kevin German, “Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. On the red carpet for the premier of the action movie, ‘Clash.’”
Photo at top, taken by an unknown photographer in the mid-1930s, is of Arthur Fellig, a.k.a. Weegee, the guy I usually think of when it comes to extreme photojournalism. I had not realized the origin of his nickname til I stumbled across this:
. . .Weegee claimed that his elbow itched when news was about to happen. “Somehow, the word spread that I was psychic because I always managed to have my pictures in the hands of the paper before any news of the event was generally known,” he wrote in Weegee by Weegee. Co-workers gave him his nickname after the rage of the time, the Ouija board, and he phoneticized it as Weegee.
His prescience was aided by the police and fire department short-wave radios he installed near his bed. . . and in his ’38 Chevy. In the car’s trunk he carried photo equipment, a typewriter for photo captions, clothes, salamis and cigars. — John Strausbaugh, “Crime was Weegee’s Oyster”
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Tags: Arthur Fellig, James Estrin, John Strausbaugh, Kevin German, Lens, Luceo Images, NB Pictures, Neil Burgess, New York Times, ouija, photography, photojournalism, Weegee
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Our September–October issue is out (still available only in digital format, but print is coming, we promise!), and here’s a sneak peek at one of my favorite photos in the issue.
This one, to accompany an article on how breastfeeding helps fight postpartum depression, was taken by Laura Siebert—who is rapidly becoming one of my favorite photographers to work with. She’s got a great eye, is seemingly unflappable under stress, has a delicious sense of humor, and consistently creates top-quality photos. What more could an art director ask? (You may well have seen her work: she has been responsible for three of our last four covers!)
To see more of Laura’s work, please visit her sites here and here.
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P.S. I don’t know if I’m allowed to say this, but the dad, in addition to being a sweet attachment-parenting proponent, is also a famous fighter in the UFC world!
Tags: breastfeeding, issue 162, Laura Siebert, postpartum depression, PPD, September-October 2010
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Forget what I said about early morning light. Evening light is the real killer.
Especially in September. Especially in Santa Fe.
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Photos taken during my walk home this evening of the old Santa Fe Southern engine (which I remember climbing on with Reeve when he was little) and shadows along the walls of Site Santa Fe.
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Tags: "Santa Fe Southern" "Site Santa Fe" train evening light, evening light, Santa Fe, September
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It’s toy time at the Mothering house! Product Review Editor Candace Walsh‘s desk has been a little like the receiving office at the North Pole, snowed under by boxes and boxes of toys, many of which have had to be assembled.
In years past, this task has fallen to Mothering‘s circulation director, John “You Da Man”* McMahon. Since John was out of town last week (traveling with his son Ian, who is starting college at Duke this fall), Bram McMahon has kindly stepped in to help. (Bram is John’s—and Mothering Editor and Publisher Peggy O’Mara‘s—younger son.)
So our staff photographer, Melyssa Holik, is starting to get all a’tingle with anticipation. Despite the fact that she has to shoot what seems like hundreds of toys, I’ve noticed that she seems to enjoy this project. (I’ve also noticed how much “arranging” and “setting up” sure can look like “playing with” . . .)
Regular readers of the magazine will know that all this buzz and hubbub is in preparation for our annual natural toy review (which appears in our November–December issue each year). And it’s a team effort: the UPS guy delivers the toys; Bram assembles them; Candace looks them over, reads up on them, plays with them, and writes about them; then Mel photographs them, gets text from Candace, and lays out the reviews.
It may only just now be September—and still almost 90 degrees out—but it’s beginning to look a bit like . . . well, you know!
*Since he is, actually, da only man in the Mothering offices these days.
Photos, from top: 1) my favorite so far of the toys Bram has put together (dolls artfully arranged by Bram); 2) the UPS guy makes a delivery at Candace’s desk; 3) Candace at her desk, last week, surrounded by boxes; 4) Bram, stopping by several afternoons this week to do assembly, thereby proving that he got his dad’s toy-building genes, for sure.
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Tags: assembling toys, Bram McMahon, candace walsh, doll house, holiday, John McMahon, mel, melyssa holik, Nov-Dec 2010, Peggy O'Mara, toy shoot, toys
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…can make just about anybody look good,* even this scraggly, spiky girl I’m calling Phyllis.** Got my fingers crossed that she will make it to full bloom before the bugs or those gorgeously villainous morning glories get her.
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*The first rule of photography I remember ever learning (back when I was earning my Girl Scout badge in Photography): Don’t even bother shooting outside between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m.
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Tags: morning light, phyllis diller, sunflower
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To shoot our July-August Peggy’s Kitchen section, an article by Cynthia Lair on do-it-yourself soda, Staff Photographer Melyssa Holik and I spent the day at the El Rey Inn, a favorite “staycation” getaway spot of mine and Tim’s, right here in Santa Fe.
The El Rey is pretty special: a Route 66-era inn tucked away just off the main drag behind white adobe walls and surprisingly lush—for the desert, I mean—gardens. Mothering Editor and Publisher Peggy O’Mara and I thought it would provide a casually elegant, summery background for the soda shoot. And it was really lovely. . .
Here are a few behind-the-scene shots from the day.
Above: The opening spread of the article, a lineup of syrups and fruit teas, mixed by Mel in preparation for the shoot.
Below: 1) Mel lines the bottles up along a wall conveniently situated beneath a skylight and above a stairway; 2) You can see that the rooms were being cleaned while we were there—oh, the glamour of the photo shoot . . . 3) We had to have a poolside photo in an article about summer drinks! 4) Mel sets up the last shot before the wind blew the placemat (and the drink) off the table; 5) I liked how cool and inviting this photo was, and wanted to show at least a hint of the Spanish-style architecture of the El Rey; and 6) Mel sets up that shot.
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Tags: behind the scenes, cynthia lair, El Rey Inn, melyssa holik, Santa Fe, soda, soft drinks
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P
hotos don’t lie. Except when they do, of course—a common enough occurrence in this age of easy access to Photoshop. That said, and despite all the airbrushed fakery and propaganda we see every day, there are still things we can learn from photographs.
My little brother, who lives in Memphis, was here in Santa Fe this week for a short visit. I say little, like a lot of us do, when I really mean younger. Three and a half years younger than I am, Grant is little only in my mind. He’s a big guy, a powerlifter who works as a math teacher by day and a security guy at a club on Beale Street on the weekends (where he found himself one night working as personal bodyguard for Steven Segal!). So little is not exactly accurate.
As usually happens only when I’m around Grant, I pretty much consistently called him Reeve (the name of my 20-year-old son)—and Reeve, Grant—while he was here. I believe this is because my thoughts of both Little Brother Grant and Son Reeve are kept in that space in my head occupied by young guys I’m supposed to be protecting—but that fact didn’t really come home to me until a couple of years ago when I was putting together a 50th anniversary photo album for my parents.
Check it out. In all three of these photos (as well as many increasingly embarrassingly Seventies-esque snapshots of the three of us as we grew older), I appear determined to hold on to my little brother (while seeming completely oblivious to my little sister, Cathy,* who was—actually still is—a tough little cookie, once running outside to stand on our porch and yell across the yard in her angriest three-year-old voice to the big six-year-old neighbor who had just made me cry: “Kim is a sissy-baby; Kim is a sissy-baby.”) In the photos, Grant seems perhaps a bit annoyed, but compliant.
When I was pregnant with Reeve, I worried that I wouldn’t be able to do the mother thing. I didn’t think I liked kids, I hated babysitting, didn’t believe I had a maternal bone in my body. After Reeve was born, I was surprised and moved by the feelings that came along with him—and stayed—so that now I’m inclined to mother almost anybody. Here I thought these feelings came from giving birth and raising Reeve, but looking at these photos and remembering how I fussed over Grant, I realize that not only did I have a predilection for the maternal early on, I had a pretty good little trainer.
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*I feel horrible for my sister when I see these; no wonder she resented me when we were younger, desperately wanted her own room, often asked our parents whether she was adopted. . . . Oddly enough—and words of hope for families with sparring siblings—once Cathy and I left home for our separate colleges, we became much closer, a trajectory which has continued through the years so that for the last couple of decades she’s been my dearest female friend. And these days she’s closer to Grant than I am.
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Photos above of me with my brother and sister back in the day. You’ll note that in each, I am hanging on to my baby brother in ways that one could characterize as either protective or really annoying, depending on one’s point of view.
At right: a mirror shot of the three of us in Memphis in April. (Over the years, I’ve learned to trust that Grant will get along just fine without me holding on to him protectively.)
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Tags: big sister, learning to parent, little brother, maternal, siblings
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The July–August issue. On newsstands—and listening devices*—now.
Photographer Laura Siebert shot the cover (her third for us in as many issues) in the mountains outside Colorado Springs, Colorado.
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*Our new audio edition! Check it out here.
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Tags: babywearing, issue 161, July-August 2011, Laura Siebert
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I love it when photos take themselves. Or, more accurately, when I snap a photo without looking and end up with something I really like. Like this one, shot with my iPhone on a day so bright that I couldn’t see a thing on the camera monitor: the mirrored hands, black, almost fists; the long stain Steve McQueen is leaning against; the placement in the frame, the way my shadow is almost cropped out; the slight reddish color around the stencil; the flecks in the pavement . . .
I also really like Steve McQueen movies. Great Escape, anyone?
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Tags: "steve mcqueen" shadow, cement, composition, great escape, sidewalk, stencil
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