Jamie Beck

In the month of March of 2020, we experienced what it looks like when the whole world stops completely. Fear, uncertainty and the inability of all of us to do anything marked the spring behind us. However, it seems that not much has changed even a year after that March. Chained by worries, both existential and global, faced with a bunch of questions to which no one has an answer, we are all looking for a piece of normality. In her home in the south of France, Jamie created her own creative world in which she shared with everyone her challenges of creating, earning and raising a child during the global pandemic, and if you ask me, she became the uncrowned queen of isolation in 2020 😊. This is a story about one of my personal heroines - Jamie Beck.

Born in Texas, at the age of 13, her mother gave her a Pentax Honeywell 35mm Spotmatic analog camera from the 70s, which still accompanies her on her travels today. It was as if that camera determined her path, so she exchanged Texas for the urban jungle better known as New York and began studying fashion photography at the Fashion Institute of Technology. As she herself says, her learning about photography has never and will never end. And that is certainly one of the advantages of photography as a profession. You can never say that you have learned everything or that you know everything. Jamie says that she still reads books, watches YouTube clips, attends courses, buys different cameras in order to learn how to take photos with them. Her career as a photographer began as an assistant to various photographers and later she worked as a freelancer for various smaller magazines.

She started her online presence in 2009 by opening a Tumblr called From Me To You (unfortunately it is no longer active). On it, she shared many photos from her personal archive, scanned from films. Later, she moved from Tumblr to a blog called Ann Street Studio. The blog was named after the street in Manhattan where she and her husband shared a workspace. In the 2010s, the fashion blogosphere was at its peak and in 2012 I started following her blog. It was a combination of her commercial engagements, travel and general lifestyle. Fashion weeks, fashion campaigns, red carpets - Jamie was everywhere!

But they experienced real success in 2011 when she and Kevin created Cinemagraphs. Cinemagraph is a motion digital form, a hybrid of photography and video. It presents a photo, one part of which moves and repeats creating the illusion of animation, do you remember how the newspaper looked in Harry Potter (The Daily Prophet) well something like that 😊. If you are wondering if they are gifs, the answer is both yes and no, they can be saved in gif format but also in video format, but their creation process is different. Kevin recorded a video for the Adobe Creative Cloud channel in which he explains the creation process, so for anyone interested, click here. When asked how did he come up with the idea to create cinemagraphs, Jamie says that Kevin has always experimented with gifs and isolating animations. Their digital camera had a recording option and they thought wouldn't it be nice if they could offer people something that would bring them the experience of fashion week, what if it was something more than a photo, so in between fashion week photography, they filmed and hunted the right moments , which Kevin would later stitch together in post-production. When they posted them on Tumblr, they knew their lives had been changed forever. Their photos came to life.

They did campaigns for many luxury brands Cartier, Tiffany & co, Armani, Saks 5th Avenue, DKNY, Zac Posen, Prabal Gurung, Chanel, Marchesa, Oscar de la Renta, Balenciaga... Their success in the fashion world grew and they worked different campaigns. This meant traveling as an integral part of their work. On the flight from Sweden in 2016, Jamie had an unpleasant experience, and she thought the plane would not land. The first thought was, well, I'll never know what it's like to live in France. She made a promise to herself that if she landed alive and well, she would try life in France. And it happened 😊.

Perhaps, most people's first choice would be Paris, but Jamie and Kevin decided on a complete lifestyle change and chose Provence and a village near the Luberon. After successfully surviving the French bureaucracy and getting a visa, she was waiting for a complete change of lifestyle. From the fact that she was woken up in the morning by the rays of the sun and not the alarm, that the morning routine included going for a fresh baguette in the bakery and slowly drinking coffee in a nearby cafe, all that was unimaginable in New York. She experienced the original shock when she went to the first grocery store, quality wine costs less than 10e and not over 30 as in New York, fruits and vegetables smelled and looked different from genetically modified ones in the USA, and only seasonal fruits and vegetables were available.

A seemingly simple task, to get used to all the benefits that nature provides in the south of France, but according to her, there were challenges at every step. She spent the whole month crying every day, faced with a completely different culture and lifestyle, questioning her decision. She didn't speak French, and it was a question of how to do some of the simplest things, how to call a taxi, how to make online purchases (keep in mind that America is a country where you also buy toilet paper online, Amazon Prime is non-existent for the French countryside) how to explain to the butcher how big a piece of meat do you want, where to buy glue and hundred more questions. Jamie describes herself as a communicative and sociable person and the feeling of loneliness (Kevin was not with her from the first day) and alienation tormented her. It wasn't enough to step out of the dark NY dress code into earthy linens and say this is the new me. It was necessary to find her place under the sun, she cried out for a personal transformation. As the weeks went by, her simple routine led to people starting to recognize her, get in touch with her, and eventually teach her certain words and phrases.

Jamie was experiencing a personal renaissance and she selflessly shared it all through her photos, Instagram stories and blog posts (unfortunately, the last post was published in 2020). Moving to a city you've never been to, to an apartment you've never seen, where a language you don't know is spoken and besides, you don't know anyone, it was necessary to turn to yourself. The beginning of her life in France was marked by a series of self-portraits that described how Jamie was feeling.

She explored both her body and her mind. In her photos, you could feel the freedom that she was exploring. Everything natural is a source of inspiration for her. But along the way, she encountered disapproval. One photo caused a misunderstanding of a part of her family for what she creates. I remember my surprise at the fact that people from liberal America find something wrong with her work. Yes, Jamie did take nude pictures, but calling it pornography, as they were, left a bitter taste in the mouth, but also caused a lot of messages of support that arrived at her address.

The reported picture was republished with censorship (yes, Instagram still has a problem only with female nipples, men's are ok) and Jamie was given a wind at her back to not stop but to embrace everything she feels and continue to explore who she is as a photographer. A quote from Albert Camus summed up the whole situation in which she found herself: "The only way to face an unfree world is to be so unimaginably free that your very life becomes an act of rebellion." She found happiness and satisfaction in a simple way of life. Her days consist of taking photos, cooking, cleaning... And she says that she only realized what a real feeling of freedom means in France. She deprived herself of the constant chase for money, city noise and found the peace she was looking for.

About Ophelia cinemagraph : ''This cinemagraph is a bit of a French baptism, a creative cleansing. I am no longer who I was before France. I have let myself wash away all my preconceived notions, and now, no matter where I end up on this earth, I will always be able to remember this version of me fearlessly floating weightless in the water that summer evening in the South of France where I met and drowned so many of those fears. Where the currents will take me I’m not sure of, but the view looking up is lovely and the creatures out to get me are now just friends…''

From the time Jamie arrived in the small village of Apt en Luberon and experienced life without Kevin in an unknown world until today, a lot has changed. Her circle of friends in France expanded, she became a well-known American in her village, the French media also wrote about her, but she also became a mother to Eloise, now three years old. Eloise's adventures with cats in Provence are a must follow on Jamie's stories 😊.

A series of self-portraits created from the day she found out she was pregnant until Eloise's first birthday are proof of Jamie's strength as a storyteller. No, these are not the kind of maternity photos you're used to seeing. Jamie takes from the painters, the feeling that oil on canvas brings, the movements are soft, the light is natural, the objects do not look modern, and the make-up consists of blush and natural oil for the face and body. In addition to self-portraits, she also creates still lives with objects, flowers and food that she finds in her vicinity. Jamie, unlike most photographers, does not hide her tricks and the process of creating a photo. From what she uses to the photo editing itself, Jamie guides her audience to the final product. Some more demanding edits lasted for days, like the creation of "Secret Evening". What amazes me personally the most about its creation is the fact that she doesn't use a mouse but only the touch pad of her laptop! Say whaaat 😊!?

When the world stopped indefinitely in March of 2020, Jamie was faced with the challenge of creating, earning and balancing professional and private. It was necessary to keep and take care of the two-year-old Eloise, to create a new source of income, as all projects were canceled at that moment (including the exhibition in New York that Jamie had been preparing for a long time). Finding strength and will, but also inspiration in the darkest period that our generation remembers, Jamie moved her photo creation, which until then was under the hashtag #MyProvenceEverydayObjects, to the hashtag #IsolationCreation and challenged herself to create a photo every day of the lockdown. She and Kevin divide their working hours in half, so that while one works the other takes care of Eloise, and thus finds time to create something that will definitely go down in history as a reminder of the misfortunes of 2020 😊. With their move, they inspired thousands of creators around the world, and today under the hashtag #isolationcreation over 550 thousand different photos and works of art can be seen. One thing led to another, and thus the idea was born to make her works available to the majority, as those sold at auction, fine art prints were out of the budget of the majority who follow her. Kevin, also known as the best customer service dad 😊 creates a website for selling Jamie's paintings. As I type this, I am impatiently waiting for my Day 41 (Natasha thank you ❤️ best birthday gift ever).

Her photos were also printed on smartphone cases, and in the future I believe that she will expand her program to stationary as well. In addition to both rounds of lockdown during which Jamie took photos, other photo series can be found on the website, which I recommend you to check. Among other things, Jamie donated part of the money from the sale to charity, more than 20 thousand dollars, to artists affected during the quarantine. She singles out day 27 as her favorite. A photo in which peonies and tulips are photographed together but in separate glass containers. That scene reminded her how we were all isolated but together again, just like the flowers in the picture. Every day, Jamie guided us all through the process of creating photos, from finding inspiration to editing, but also the feelings that characterized each of those days.

Of course, her creative journey does not end here. While her blog was on hiatus, Jamie's keyboard wasn't resting. For a year now, she has been working hard on collecting and compiling material for the publication of her first book about life and creation in Provence. No words needed, I'm eagerly waiting for that book! Today, I'm very glad that a random photo led me to Jamie's blog some 8-9 years ago, I'm glad that I was able to accompany her maturation both as a narrator and as a photographer. Because her eye can see as much beauty as her hand can write. I'm waiting for her to buy a chateau and I'm packing my bags, I guess she'll need an assistant (p.s. I know French, what else do you need) 😊?

Jamie is a window into the world of possibilities, proof that success awaits us when we step a little outside our comfort zone. She accepts and celebrates her imperfections and mistakes. She shows how we can live authentically without forcing ourselves to fit into anyone's frameworks and standards. As freedom is necessary for each of us, and until we fulfill what we cry out for in our essence, we will not feel complete.

Finally, if you don't already follow her on Instagram, it's a must. Posters and masks on this website, and you can see some old texts and pictures here.

Au revoir et Jamie,je t'aime!