Christine Ness

So May must be photographers’ month for me. Last week I featured a great outdoor photographer (www.billjagdephotography.com), Bill Jagde. Bill’s passion for our National Parks resonated with a lot of my readers, especially those in my age bracket who grew up here in Monroe.

Today, I am compelled to write about another great photographer, Christine Ness. Where Bill’s specialty is all about outside, I would have to say that Christine’s is all about inside. Whether she’s shooting someone in Central Park for their website, snapping “fly-on-the-wall” shots of your kids for the day, or grabbing that one perfect picture of a flower, Christine just seems to unlock the soul of her subject.

Chris has an ability to brilliantly capture the essence of her subject’s spirit; to wait, patiently, for that exact moment when angle and shadow meet the light in someone’s eye or the glint in their smile. You can almost feel the soft innocence of a baby’s cheek or the protective, benevolent branches of a tree reaching out to you.

Christine’s patience is exactly the magic that happened when we met to do my photo in Central Park. To begin with, I was pretty uptight about having anyone take my picture. I had gotten more than enough unsolicited feedback about the one I had been using (big glasses, permed hair – I guess it was a little outdated). But I definitely did NOT want something that looked like I had walked into the mall or megamart – or worse, some corporate looking facade – that part of my life is over.

Chris chatted away as we began, patiently taking fifteen or twenty shots on a beautiful bench, distracting me with laughter from the lines on my face and the fullness of my cheeks. When sitting became unbearable, fueled by fits of hilarity because we could both remember the theme to, “The Courtship of Eddie’s Father,” I got up and walked behind a beautiful braided tree that reached into the trellis above us. As I peeked around from behind that tree, laughing, Chris snapped the picture. I didn’t even realize she had the camera in her hand.

That picture speaks volumes to me. It says things that I hadn’t even realized were true. It says that woman is joyous and free-spirited, that she loves her life. In fact, I don’t see one line on her face. THAT is what Christine does. She translates deeper truths and precious moments.

Chris has many specialties: pregnant moms, kids being kids, natural setting headshots and portraits, she even recognizes that the family pet deserves a GREAT picture on the mantel. She has many great, affordable packages – you can hire her to go on vacation with your family – or simply meet her in the park for an hour of impromptu, fly-on-the-wall portraits of your kids. You can also pick up a package of custom, hand-made pictures mounted onto cards to send to your dad in Alaska or use them throughout the year for special occasions. (A package of ten cards is a great buy at $50 – can you say shower gift?)

Chris stressed to me, over and over, during our interview that her work is precious to her. Her passion to serve others through her gift is honestly hard to miss. She started taking pictures when she was just eleven or twelve years old with a little Kodak 110 camera and graduated to a Poloroid One Step, shared by her entire family. Years later, she would invest in a great 35-millimeter and begin to take classes at the International Center of Photography in New York, learning dark room and lighting techniques and putting together photo essays for assignments like “Chaos.”

I asked Chris what Chaos looked like to her, and she got lost in thought, “There was a crowd bursting with people outside FAO Schwartz… there is a shot of an overturned trashcan with a store-front gate covered in grafitti behind it… another was a traffic jam on 5th Avenue.” I found myself wishing to flip through those photos that she took so long ago. To Christine (and I suspect to most of us), they read like poetry.

On her website http://www.christineness.com/, you can spot some of the intimacy and vulnerability Chris brings to her work; she is the silent witness to the world around her, bringing something rare to those she works with, something that most of us simply do not have, an objective view into the day-to-day beauty that is our lives.


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You've Been Framed!

Unique, Designer Cards and Prints
by Professional Photographer Christine Ness

Preview and Purchase Christine's Exclusive Line of Designer Cards that Capture the Beauty of Every Day Life.With her camera's eye, Christine frames precious and amazing images of life as it happens around us -- she captures those moments that we may be too distracted by life's hurry and worry to even notice.

Christine's Designer Photo Cards are a unique way to say to your closest friend, mom or wife that her day-to-day beauty does not escape you. That like Christine's pictures, you see the treasure she is and that each moment you have together is rare and alive in your heart.Visit Christine's website at www.christineness.com.

Christine Ness, Professional Photographer
Specializing in Natural Setting Portraits
917-715-2015

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Bill Jagde Photography

Welcome to Life in Monroe, NY. I recently wrote a blog for a client about how children naturally embrace meditation. How they can lay still on the grass with ease, finding images in the clouds or get this close to a butterfly and examine the pollen on his feet and the dust on his wings.

Much to my envy, at 40+ years old, Bill Jagde is still like that kid lost in the glass at the candy store, only Bill’s glass is a camera lens. About a million years ago, Bill went on a couple of vacations and brought along a camera. The kind of camera that sits in everyone’s desk drawer – nothing special, just a camera. But something very special happened for Bill. To be fair, part of it was about the Arizona desert. And while the words, “Arizona Desert,” might mean nothing but tumbleweeds and … well, nothing, to us, to Bill Jagde it is simply foreplay.

After years of friendship, we finally cleared our calendar and went to one of his exhibits when his photos were being featured in Beacon a couple of summers ago. Now as most of you know by now, I am far from visual. I’m a word girl. So the fact that my husband had to drag me OUT of Bill’s show says volumes. We left with a $60 print, all we could afford at that time, and we proudly displayed it in the only place we were allowed by the police – our daughter’s room. (She’s the police, if you haven’t guessed.) Nowhere would do for that picture of the “Mittens” than her room. So at the next show, we made sure to buy two photos. One less expensive print to add to our child’s growing collection of Bill’s work, and one for our living room wall.

Okay, I’ll admit it, we bought the one on our living room wall for my boss. My generous, loving boss who was so good to us – but then we simply couldn’t part with it. We bought him a bottle of wine, and we sat and enjoyed our good thinking over a cup of coffee, as lost in that photo as any kid in a candy store.

Bill’s story is pretty cool, he graduated from that beat up camera to a borrowed one – just to be sure he loved it at much as he thought he did – and then he started investing in his gift (for the technically aware among you, Bill primarily uses a Nikon Digital SLR camera).

Most recently, Bill and his wife went on a second honeymoon to Volcanoes National Park in Hawaii, which he says slightly resembles Mars – craters and steam everywhere. It is a dichotomy, though – tropical jungles overflowing with plants and flowers, set against a backdrop of waterfalls and sunsets live next door to rivers of molten lava cut through miles of black rock and explosions of brilliance and hot gas. Amazingly, Bill captures it all with a box and a lens.

How wonderful the universe is, that it still unveils its gifts to us, even when we’re not twenty-one any more. And Bill’s gift has definitely been unveiled. He tours the country visiting his passion – our National Parks – and he shoots them with the eyes of a lover. He brings to life images that the rest of us might actually miss in person. He captures a moment and does what great photographers do, he gives it immortality.

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How to Get Bills Work

We happily discovered that owning a piece of Bill’s art, is very realistic – with simple prints for less than $100 and beautifully framed works from $100 - $600. For not much more, you can talk to Bill about custom sizing and framing any of his works specifically to your own room or collection. If you’re in the Hudson Valley, you can visit Bill’s work on display at the Art House Gallery, 1397 Kings Hwy, Sugar Loaf – or you can view his online collection at http://www.billjagdephotography.com/.

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Declining Attendance at our National Parks

For Bill Jagde, our nation’s national parks are well deserving of the immortality he gives them through his work. They have become something that should never have happened, they’ve become hidden treasures. Our National Park Service estimates that we have experienced an astonishing 90% drop in attendance since 1987 -- 90% less of us will see Yellowstone, The Grand Canyon, Big Bend, Denali, and on and on. We are fortunate in the Hudson Valley to be within an hour of many of New York State’s National Parks and attractions (from Governor’s Island in NYC to Saratoga National Historical Park near Albany).

(Visit http://usparks.about.com/blpkny.htm for a more complete list.) The message in all of Bill’s photographs is clear, these are hidden treasures well worth the effort. And while you may not be able to throw the kids in the station wagon and trek to the Grand Canyon tomorrow, you should definitely make an afternoon to visit and learn about Ellis Island. And whether you go anywhere or not having a piece of Bill’s vision hung on your wall is honestly an every-day oasis – the reminder that somewhere, right now, there is this immensely beautiful place that doesn’t give a crap about my laundry, my work, or my worries. It (and maybe even we) are simply more than that.

- Mary Agnes Antonopoulos (Mary Vetell)

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