i am a huge fan of Heidi Swanson’s amazing food blog 101 Cookbooks - and i’m sure you are too – but i only recently discovered her beautiful photography (other than her food photography, of course). she is a super talented lady, with a new york times bestselling cookbook and wonderfully curated online shop Quitokeeto. check out more of her photos at flickr.
all photos by Heidi Swanson
Robert Holmgren is a photographer based in California who is originally from Rockford, Illinois. on his flickr page is a collection of portraits he scanned from old negatives dating back to 1971. here are some of my favourites.
They range from my hometown Rockford, IL, my first photography classes in Southern Illinois University, to homes in Kokomo, IN, San Francisco, CA, Minneapolis, MN, Menlo Park, CA and places in between. They include family, friends, co-workers and strangers. I wasn’t intending there to be a common linkage, only a record of seemed interesting at the time.
i was catching up on emails this morning after our internet-less weekend away and a wonderful letter from Anna Fusco was just so awesomely serendipitous & co-incidental, as i had literally just read this book and listened to this podcast.
both are stories of people who one day decided to hit the road and leave their ordinary lives behind – whether it was to go on a quest, or for no particular reason at all but to experience the open road… Anna & Nate are on the same path, having bought a thirty year old camper van and setting off on April 1st “with nothing but our cameras, our dog, the books we couldn’t bear to leave behind, and a new sleeping bag courtesy of my mother.”
Since then, we’ve been traveling the U.S. without a calendar or a particular destination, living off of canned beans and tortilla chips. I’ve been religiously documenting every step of my wanderlust, the beauty and the breakdowns. Trust me that the van isn’t the only thing having an occasional meltdown. But that’s life, that’s van life, and I like it.
Everywhere we stop, people tell us they wish they could do what we do. I want people, women especially, to know that they CAN live in their VW campers and eat their cake too. I say women in particular because for some time it appeared to me that this was a seemingly male dominated “lifestyle,” attainable only by ex-professionals turned religious surfers (i.e. Foster Huntington, another big inspiration) – not by shrimpy twenty-something city girls too attached to their Swedish Hasbeens to “rough it” and too afraid of big waves to surf.
be sure to follow their adventures at Anna’s blog Dama and Dig. all photos by Anna Fusco.
we’ve been wanting to visit River View for a long time, and so really had no better excuse to go than to celebrate our anniversary weekend. not being hotel types, we much prefer to find chilled out (and budget friendly) self-catering joints where you can just relax, read, cook, eat and sleep for a few days. luckily you can find so many places that tick those boxes within a few hours from Cape Town.
River View is just outside Calitzdorp, a town in the Klein Karoo that’s a leisurely 4 hour drive from Cape Town along Route 62 (depending on how many stops you make along the way). owners Colin & Bronwyn left the city to set up home in the Matjiesvlei valley, and as every day passed we became more & more envious of their slice of paradise.
if you manage to stay there (and I urge you do) then you’ll no doubt be paid a visit by Jock – the doe-eyed jack russell terrier who strangely always pitches up around eating time… as well as Jessie, the beautiful boer greyhound, who has a bit more style and finesse than old Jock – but i think that’s part of her clever ploy to get doggie treats. we were more than happy to oblige, in exchange for having temporary pets for 3 days.
and now we’re home again, missing it already.
ps: many of you asked in my Kruger Park post what camera and filters I use. those & these were shot with a Canon 5D mark III and edited in Lightroom, making use of VSCO filters when I’m feeling fancy.
i love anything to do with cowgirls, so it was a treat looking through this recent New York Times feature about cowgirls of today who grow up in the ranch country of the Texas Panhandle. some of these girls appear quite tough (and i bet they are!) but then you spot the inconspicuous braid in their horse’s mane. photographer Ilona Szwarc is known for her series about American Girls, which you can see on her website.
When talking about rodeoing, the girls muse about their spiritual connection to the animals and the grit the sport helps them build — rather than the fact that they’re crossing over into traditionally male territory. “I used to be scared a lot, to even get on a horse,” Riley Sessions, 12, says. “I got tougher as I got on a horse and started riding. You’ve got to be pretty brave to ride a horse.” – Julie Bosman
