iPhone 4s has an amazing camera!
Down the hall on the right you can see the “Ann Brooks” shingle hanging over my studio door. Hope you’ll come visit.
I just posted a story about Art Works Downtown’s Dia de los Muertos gallery exhibition. I took all the photos with my new iPhone 4S camera. Absolutely amazing camera – though also a phone. In any case I’m loving having it with me everywhere I go. It’s gotten me back into photography.
You can see the story and all the iPhone 4S photos on my other blog, Ann Brooks Studio which I’ve usually thought of as my jewelry blog.
Old and New India
In Jodhpur, India in 2006 I was in my favorite market street with my Canon dSLR. Among the many images recorded that day was this one.
I was taken by the fact that this single image seemed to symbolize where India was (and still is, I’d venture) – between two views of itself, between two worlds. Traditional India in a purple turban, looking back through millennia and India in a red motorcycle helmet, rushing into the 21st-Century.
Because the image was made in haste, the focus is on the middle and distance and not on the men, as it should have been. As it is far from technically perfect, I’ve never made it available in my studio. The other day, in the middle of a major cleaning project in my home office/studio, I came across it.
Darn, I still like it and so, decided share it with you here and now.
You can see more images from my Indian trips here on my website, www.annbrooks.net or in my studio at Art Works Downtown in San Rafael, California.
A Manhattan week in early April
Here’s a photo blog from my early April week in New York City, specifically, Manhattan. In years past, I had spent little time on the Upper East Side. I used www.airbnb.com to find a great place to stay, which turned out to be on the Columbia campus! Great new New York experience.
Here’s the typical scene, the Columbia University Library as I walked to the 116th Street subway station. I added the second photo because I loved the history written on the Library’s frieze. Early American history.
Our near neighbors were Morningside Park and The Cathedral of Saint John the Devine.With a nursery school on the first floor of our building, the children played below my window.
During our stay, we payed homage to some of the city’s architectural wonders including a door in The Village! The cat in the doors window? — actually the reflection from the side of a pet food delivery truck. When photographing windows, reflections can be a problem. This one was a gift!
Strolled Fifth Avenue’s extravagant windows, Tiffany’s wall art and Harry’s emeralds. And a touching homage to Japan’s nuclear disaster.
Watched shoes lining up at Daffy’s on 57th and strolling the Apple Store.
On the fifth floor of the Modern Museum of Art I could see three seminal, turn into the 20th Century paintings as I stood in one spot and turned in three directions.
One day during the week, as I returned ‘home’, coming up out of the Columbia subway station, I found revolutionaries from the ’60s at the gates, working on today’s conversions!
First early spring, sunny Sunday in Central Park!
Arrived in NYC Saturday night. Awoke to the first sunny Sunday in early spring. Just after noon I headed to Central Park with my camera and was not disappointed! Seemed the city had turned out to enjoy!
1950s North African market influenced my future travels, photography, jewelry
The North African souq which was to influence my travels, my photography and my jewelry for years to come. Taken with a Kodak Baby Brownie.
I was a very impressionable teenager in the 1950s, when I first set eyes on a North African souq.
My grandmother and I had been traveling independently in Europe, from Ireland and Scotland, south through England, France and Spain. It was not all that long after World War II and Europe, itself seemed very “different” to this American teenager.
But I was in no way prepared for what I would see across the Straights of Gibraltar in Morocco, in Tangiers. The French were still present there and it was not unusual to see a European woman pushing a stroller on the same sidewalk with an Arab woman, covered from head to toe, with a toddler in hand. And Coca-Cola signs in both French and Arabic — on the same sign! The snake charmer! I found it all quite amazing.
But it was the sight of the the Arabs gathered in a souq, that North African market, that sunk deeply into my psyche. That view would influence where I chose to travel in future decades and even the jewelry I make today, a half century later!
It was my first view of how other people in the world lived that seemed in no way connected to the life I had known growing up in California. It stirred my my curiosity, my passion. I knew I wanted to see, learn more about other people, far away lands.
But then, time out to marry, raise a family and I was pretty tied down for two decades. I did manage to take my own children to Europe in 1973.
The yearning did not go away. Mexico was near and satisfied some of that need. Finally, in 1989 I saw India for the first time, but it was not till 2005 that I was able to return to India and made contacts with a Muslim family in Rajasthan that I would end up doing a photo documentary about their teenage daughter the following year.
“Rajasthani Hanki” – 100 layers in Photoshop
One of my images, “Rajasthani Hanki” was juried into the current exhibition in the Art Works Downtown gallery, “New Avenues: digitally influenced art”. Yes, I know, I don’t usually photoshop my photography, but I sure had fun with this one.
From my notes about the image: ”Rajasthani Hanki” was created in Photoshop using over 100 layers of carefully chosen details from digital images I made in the cities of Jaipur and Jodhpur in India’s state of Rajasthan.
Rajasthan is in northwest India which abuts Pakistan on it’s western border. Historically the state has been composed of a number smaller principalities which were united into what became the largest of India’s states at the time of Independence in 1947.
Prior to statehood, the major principality in Rajasthan was the city of Jaipur (2.3 million population today) , which became the state’s capital. Another, smaller, sister principality was the city of Jodhpur, population close to one million today.
In this piece, the central image is that of a young woman selling posters of sacred Hindu imagery along a major market street in Jodhpur. This is surrounded by lacy balcony details from City Palace in Jaipur. Next are a series of women in the picturesque, walled Old Market in central Jodhpur. The remaining, lacy effects which complete the ‘hanki”, are of a variety of architectural details from various palaces in “Pink City” of Jaipur.
To summarize, photos of the women are all from Jodhpur. All architectural details are form royal palaces in Jaipur.
Cultural note: Marin County and internationally acclaimed Indian musician, the late Ali Akbar Kahn was court musician to the palace in Jodhpur for several years prior to Indian Independence.
Future Odalisque Café at Art Works Downtown
Finally, looks like almost all the building permits are in and construction of Odalisque Café is about to get underway. This is how it looked when the Chinese restaurant that had been there for years, left and the space was gutted to the bare brick walls. I’ve always loved this picture, so untypical of my work.
Look for the opening of Odalisque Café, in the Art Works Downtown building on Fourth Street, San Rafael early in 2011. It will be a wonderful addition to the arts community and to all of Marin. More info on the Odalisque Café website.
Jodhpur photo honors and signs of rapid change in India.
Over the Fourth of July weekend Marin County, California holds it’s annual County Fair, reputed to be one of the best in the country for it’s Fine Arts exhibitions. So, this year you can imagine how pleased I was when one of my images was chosen “Best in Class” for Monochromatic Photography.
Recently, over several years, I had spent about two weeks each in Jodhpur, in the state of Rajasthan in India. I was doing a still photography documentary about a Muslim girl who wanted to become a doctor and had great support from her family.
The other thing I always looked forward to in Jodhpur, was photographing in the vibrant streets, and markets in this small, ancient Indian city. I had found that about 5 p.m. each afternoon the light came streaming through the city’s major market street and was often magnificent. 
It was in this street, at that hour that I took the three black and white photos in this post. The one to the right has been an award winner several times, including this year’s county fair.
Below are two others in that series. The year after I took the one with the man and the cows, I marveled that the same small street was a totally different scene – lots of motorcycles and motor scooters and no cows in site – signs of very recent prosperity!
On the right below, is a woman carrying her groceries in that 5-gallon can on her head, something else that was nowhere to be seen as prosperity took over in subsequent years.
Yes, prosperity is bringing large, rapid changes to many parts of India. It is growing harder to find “the old India”.
Technical notes: Photos were taken with my first digital SLR, a Canon Rebel XT, and the 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS lens that I still use on my Canon 40D today. The images were then converted from color to black & white in Photoshop.
[Addendum: The Indian photos were taken in October 2005]
Italian Street Painting Festival in San Rafael
I had my trusty Panasonic LX3 with me, it was late in the afternoon and the shadows were long. So at times I had fun playing with the long shadows in my images. Here are some of the photos, including one of a street painting being done by Erin Castelan for the main sponsor of the event, Youth In Arts.
Frogs or Fleas? Plazuela de los Sapos
This February I timed my visit to Puebla, Mexico so that I would arrive in time for two days of sleuthing at an open air market. I was looking for unusual little goodies to add to yet to be designed jewelry for my collection.
Every weekend at Plazuela de los Sapos – little plaza of the toads (frogs) – vendors set up shop for a lively outdoor market. It’s often referred to as Mercado de Antigüedades or Antiques Market. To me it seemed more like a flea market, and I loved it!
Saturday I went looking for little charms and trinkets to hang on bracelets yet to be designed for my jewelry studio – both online and at Art Works Downtown. I did find some wonderful little charms and other goodies which, once affixed with a loop of one type or another, can be added to bracelets. I also found pieces that can be the center focus of necklaces.
Sunday I returned to the market, hoping for more jewelry goodies and found none. However, I did have my Canon 40D with me and came home with another type of gem — great photos for my notecard series, a selection of four follows at the bottom of this post.
One of the images for notecards is the one above, “San Miguel Arcangel”, patron saint of Puebla. San Miguel and his niche is right in the middle of the little plaza where the weekend antiques market is held. The medium for the image is Talavera tile, for which Puebla is well known.
Here’s the plaza on the weekend … and then, during the week.
Parisian déja vu in Puebla, Mexico!
My second morning in Puebla, Mexico, I awoke with a strong feeling of déja vu. Actually a very comforting feeling. I had a sense of being in a little hotel in Paris as a teenager, my grandmother nearby. How could it be? This is Mexico! My grandmother long gone!
Then I began reflecting on my hotel room’s high, double French doors with the solid inside shutters covering them, a protection from cold and light at night.
Yes! An intuitive sense that these doors were sisters to ones that had been in that small hotel in Paris so many years ago!
Then the suspicion, no I think I had heard that the French and other Europeans, had, indeed been here in Puebla. These immigrants, business men, bankers, industrialists had come in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, exactly the period of the building I was in now and that of others around the center of the city.
And so, that day and the next I went out with my camera on a detective hunt around the historic center of Puebla. Looking for more evidence of a European presence. More evidence that I wasn’t crazy, that my déja vu experience actually had a foundation. And here’s what I found! – Art Nouveau is alive and well in Puebla, Mexico!
~ ~ ~
There is a little story and photo I took of my grandmother in Europe in when I was a teenager, elsewhere in this blog. You can find it here.
And on my website is a selection of photos I took on that European trip with a 1952 Kodak Baby Brownie.
Fiesta of the Virgin of Candelaria in Oaxaca
February 2nd is Fiesta of the Virgin of Candelaria here in Oaxaca, and I understand in all of Mexico. It is the special day when families dress up their baby Jesus figures and carry them to church to get blessed. Some dress them at home but, as it turns out, some go into the markets to have special vendors dress them.
… I 
discovered the Jesus dress vendors in Mercado Juarez quite by accident. Late in the afternoon I wandered down there because, though I had been in Oaxaca several times before, I had not visited that market in recent years. Much to my surprise, I saw several women with nearly naked Jesus dolls, waiting in line at two market shops where they were dressing the dolls in elaborate clothes, some regal, some quite sweet. I stayed, watched the process for some time taking pictures to record the event.
After taking a number of photos of the dolls being dressed, I decided I had to finish the story by following some of the dolls and their owners to church for the blessing. I loved the photo of the young woman in pink heading to church with her Jesus doll in a bag, peering out!
The last photo on the lower right is of the wife of the owner of La Olla Restaurant, newly back from church and the blessing of her baby Jesus which she is returning to the display case.
~~~
I am grateful to Carole Turkenik who, after more than thirty years living in and out of Oaxaca, has written “Oaxaca Tips“, a through and unique compendim of interesting places, happenings — including this event, shopping, restaurants in Oaxaca to share her insights.
To my surprise, I’m doing jewelry photography!
Before I got into serious photography I was a jeweler and always depended on a professional, Hap Sakwa, to photograph my nationally reputed fine art jewelry. I had very high standards, not only for my jewelry, but for the photography that represented it. Here are examples of Hap’s photography and my earlier jewelry.
~ jewelry: Ann Brooks, photos: Hap Sakwa
By last summer, and for the last five years I’d been solely a photographer. In August I was puzzling over what to do with a substantial stash of beads I still had. Maybe sell them.? To whom? Then I had a better idea. Use them to make jewelry and sell it to get a return on the beads. Beaded jewelry was a come-down after having been a fine art jeweler. For physical reasons I couldn’t do that any more, so hey, why not have fun doing beaded jewelry? And in addition to my studio at Art Works Downtown, why not sell it online?
So, I’ve been having a great time designing and making beaded jewelry. Then I had to face the challenge of how to do my own jewelry photography. Sure, I’m a photographer, have a good camera but jewelry photography is a real speciality, needing equipment, lighting conditions and experience. Research on the web brought me to these great videos by NYC photographer, Michael Seto on how to photograph jewelry. I adapted some of Michael’s ideas to my own situation, determined not to use traditional lighting, but the diffused natural light coming through the bay windows in my living room.
Teaching myself the ropes of jewelry photography has been a steep learning curve and I’m still learning. So far, I’ve learned a lot about using my Canon 40D that I didn’t know before and a some new things about using available light. Though you can see lots of my jewelry photos here on my zibbet.com shop pages, here are a few examples.
Textile Museum of Oaxaca – Museo Textil de Oaxaca
In the heart of the city of Oaxaca is the only textile museum in Mexico. Museo Textile de Oaxaca is in a restored grand 18th Century home. Privately funded, the museum opened early in 2008.
Though the museum’s exhibitions often feature the work of Oaxacan weavers and needle craftspersons, this October they mounted an impressive exhibition of the Guatemalan textile collection of René Bustamante.
Museum director, Ana Paula Fuentes Quintana introducing René Bustamante during the opening reception for the exhibition of his Guatemalan textile collection.
One of the museum’s main missions is to provide resources to Oaxacan weavers and designers. While I was there, a natural dye workshop was taking place.
In addition to education, the museum provides a library and textile restoration. It is not unusual to find a weaver from one of the villages surrounding the city of Oaxaca is demonstrating their techniques in the atrium of the museum.
Click here for the museum’s website.
Fighting poverty with micro finance in Oaxaca villages
Last week I joined a group who went to visit women who are struggling entrepreneurs in the village of Teotitlán del Valle outside of Oaxaca City in Mexico. The village has been, for generations, a weaving village. Five of the women we visited are, in fact weavers.
We went with Investours, “tours that fight poverty”. Our guide was Carlos Hernandez Topete, co-founder of the non-profit organization. Carlos, a native of Oaxaca with a business degree from Boston University met Ashwin Kaja, currently studing law at Harvard and who had been researching how to blend tourism and micro finance. Carlos saw a way that Ashwin’s concept could be applied to villiages surrounding Oaxaca and in 2008 they created Investours. Click here to find out more about the organization and how you can participate. [March 2010, Investours changed their name to En Via and the link is to their new website.]
We visited two groups of three women in their own home studios where they showed us what they were making to sell and explained why they needed a loan, typically $100 to $150 US.
In the first group was Yanet Bagan who makes jewelry and uses the proceeds from sales to pay for transportation to be able to continue school as higher grades are some distance from the village. Yanet needed money to buy more of two types of wire. One a silver color, the other black. With it she will continue to be able to make more of her stunning wire-work earrings.
Teresa Lopez was the first of four weavers who needed a loan to buy more yarn that is already spun and dyed. Though many weavers had done their own carding, spinning and dying of the wool, they now feel it is more efficient to have others do that time-consuming part of the process so that they can spend their time weaving.
Teresa Sosa was the third woman in the first group. Also a weaver, she wanted a loan so she could buy already spun and dyed yarn.
In the second group of three, Soledad “Chole” Martinez (right) is a weaver, doing contract weaving for other weavers. However, because work is sometimes slow,for two years she has been selling Avon products to supplement income. She needed a loan in order to buy a small table to display her Avon products on in the village’s market place.
Guadeloupe Contreras and Juana Bazán, both weavers each wanted loans to buy ready-spun and dyed yarn.
After visiting the two groups of three woman artisans, we went to a restaurant for a traditional Oaxican meal, At the end of the meal we discussed the groups, what their needs were and decided between us to which group our tour money would be given as an interest-free loan. In the end, it was agreed that the first group should be given the loan this time, but we all wanted to see Chole (the Avon lady in the second group) get her table and happily contributed a little more, specifically earmarked for that purpose.
~ ~
Click for Investours Facebook page ~ for Investours website ~ or email: see below.
NOTE: [March 2010, Investours changed their name to En Via and the link is to their new website. Email for emily is now -- emily at envia.org.]
~ ~
