Seen Meanjean?

2011-07-21T12:56:00.000-07:00

Paris, June 2011.

2011-07-21T12:55:00.001-07:00

My girls are growing up.

2011-07-12T10:48:00.000-07:00

2011-07-12T10:43:00.000-07:00

2011-07-12T10:42:00.001-07:00

Ryan and Sophia

2011-04-14T08:32:00.000-07:00

Steamboat snowglobe. March 2011.

2010-12-04T12:01:00.000-08:00

My little kitty Maxine is 4 today!

2010-12-03T22:11:00.000-08:00

More from Palm Desert:

2010-12-03T22:07:00.000-08:00

Cottonwood Creek, Englewood, Colorado.

2010-12-03T22:05:00.000-08:00

Palm Desert diptych:

2010-12-03T21:56:00.000-08:00

Scenes from the Mediterranean:

2010-03-13T09:33:00.000-08:00

Some Denver diptychs:

2010-03-13T09:31:00.000-08:00

Brooklyn snow globe in black and white:

2010-02-26T20:24:00.000-08:00

Brooklyn snowglobe:

On that note, how about a Fairfield rainglobe?

2010-02-26T19:07:00.000-08:00

I was just looking through old family photos from Taiwan and my parents' early years here in the US, and I just realized there is a type of portrait that I take that is obviously influenced by the way my dad and relatives all take photos (which I guess is a very common way to take pictures around the world): posing people smack dab center in the scene that you want to record, for posterity's sake. This is where we were, this is what we looked like, this is who we visited. Subjects are usually standing straight, facing straight towards the camera. (This photo illustrates what I'm talking about.) Some of the best examples I have deserve a separate post: they are a series of pics of my uncle, in a business suit with a briefcase in hand, standing in the middle of a rice paddy, in front of his childhood home, on the tarmac at the airport, with some old farmers (relatives)...together, it seems like they were taken in a span of 5 minutes.

Anyhow, bring me back from my tangent: looking at my pics from the previous post, and through other portraits, I see that this style of portrait pops up repeatedly, no matter how hard I've tried to switch styles. It's funny, because when I was a teen and just starting out with photography, and very self-conscious that my home, my environment was so vastly different from my peers' lifestyles, I purposely tried to omit the background in pics of family members, or around my home, trying to mimic that (then) new WASP-y yuppie style that is now a Pottery Barn signature: close-focused, black and white, shallow depth of field. Of course, I now embrace everything that once embarrassed me, which means I embrace 'packratting' details into my pictures to help tell the story.

But, even with my latest style preference for shooting portraits, I still cannot get that centering out of my system: it's in my DNA.

Below, some more "Vintage Meanjean" portraits to go with the Calle Conde pics from the previous post:

2010-02-18T15:14:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to organize an enormous and messy trove of negatives and pictures...came across these scans on a CD that I hadn't opened! These were taken in Havana, on my 30th birthday...after spending a few days shooting on this street, the residents of little Calle Conde had asked me to take pictures of them, and of their kids before I left, and asked me to mail them copies. I did mail a big packet of color photographs...I never heard back from anyone, so I do not know if they were actually delivered or not.

Hopefully, someone from their neighborhood will google the street and stumble across these (Calle Conde / Habana / Picota)...and then they can contact me and I can email them a link to the others that I will eventually post to Flickr.

2010-01-20T17:56:00.000-08:00

Summer of 2008, above: Ring Around the Rosie with Lorraine and Mush. Fairfield, CT.

Mush loved spending time with the girls...

...She loved spoiling them, too.

...and Maxine loved visiting Mushie. I'm certain Veronica (whom I wanted to name Wilhelmina, after Mush) would have grown to love these visits, too.

This is the last time I saw Mush, at St. Vincent's Hospital in Bridgeport, CT. Maxine got to visit one last time a few days later and was happy to climb all over her again. Today, we are going to her wake.

2010-01-20T16:31:00.000-08:00

Last night at Radio City Music Hall, The Swell Season with
The Frames. Awesome.

2010-01-07T19:38:00.000-08:00

99 Cent City, Downtown Brooklyn.

2010-01-07T19:21:00.000-08:00

Whoops! This was sitting in my drafts box.

Happy 2010!

2009-12-22T21:30:00.000-08:00

Old Istanbul

2009-07-09T23:22:00.000-07:00

This is the image I will most strongly associate with Istanbul:
a flock of seagulls hovering over a lit mosque at night.

2009-06-11T23:57:00.000-07:00

Kenn & Mariah's pet fish:

San Diego snowglobe:

May in San Diego:

2009-05-24T21:50:00.000-07:00

2009-05-24T21:47:00.001-07:00

The faded colors and lighting at my eldest auntie's home are so painterly. Erlun, Taiwan.

2009-05-24T21:41:00.000-07:00

Word association: figment

2009-05-24T21:37:00.000-07:00

Word association: can't seem to think of one, but they fit together.

2009-05-24T21:35:00.000-07:00

One day, they'll let me play.

2009-05-17T05:53:00.000-07:00

2009-05-17T05:38:00.000-07:00

Word association: lukewarm.

2009-05-17T05:32:00.000-07:00

Word association: super.

2009-04-12T00:11:00.000-07:00

Diptych: red bag, pink coat. Soho, 2008.

2009-04-10T21:44:00.000-07:00

Still lifes from Vancouver, WA.

2009-04-10T21:03:00.000-07:00

Still lifes: one fake, one fresh.

2009-04-10T00:07:00.000-07:00

I just came back from Colorado, where I grew up. I don't spend much time there anymore, but certain 'landmarks' from my past still bring back a rush of memories...spotting just the rollercoaster, for instance, unearths years that have gone flat and vague in my mind. It's not even the original park (it was moved, and the Mr. Twister coaster is now called Twister II.) A complex geography of emotions attached to my teen years was totally forgotten--until we drove by the Country Dinner Playhouse and the Target next door. It all seemed so banal and grey then. Now, looking at these places, having been away for half my life, it's so bizarre and otherwordly to think that my sore thumb of a family was woven so tightly into this fabric.

2009-04-10T00:05:00.000-07:00

Tree, Denver.

2009-04-10T00:00:00.001-07:00

Snowstorm. Centennial, Colorado. April 2009.

2009-04-01T21:35:00.000-07:00

Fernsehturm from the plane. Berlin, 2006.

2009-03-10T21:52:00.000-07:00

Perfect poufs.

2009-02-10T21:14:00.000-08:00

My muse, Maxine.

2009-01-10T21:53:00.000-08:00

Toy association.

2008-04-10T21:22:00.000-07:00

Some quiet scenes from Taiwan. March 2008.

2003-06-03T22:12:00.000-07:00

This will soon be Meanjean's photo blog!