... That year in Asheville I nested into my first place, and oh the food experimentation to be had. A Classics major, I would put off translating Greek to cook and bake. It seemed I was unable to take the first bite off my plate without first photographing it. I visited my friend Chloe in Savannah, and watched her slice into her first loaf of homemade bread, I was inspired. I returned to Asheville and couldn't get enough of bread baking, experimenting with kneading, sometimes adding various herbs and nuts, and then I realized: this is what I should be doing.
I transfered to a culinary school in Providence - the furthest I've ever been away from home - I didn't know anyone. I nested into the sweetest cottage loft, still baking, still photographing, and after a month of isolation I finally made my first friend - a photography major at the Rhode Island School of Design, she was the first one to help me see my potential with photography. Sharing macaroni and cheese at the downtown bar, she drew up the technicalities of the camera, instructing me on aperture, shutter speed, ISO - all the basics. My photos got a bit better and I made birthday cakes for the new friends I was making. She gifted me with my first film camera - the camera that is still always by my side - a Pentax K1000.
After fully accepting that the culinary school in Providence wasn't the best fit, I moved up - to a small cooking and baking school in the middle of Vermont. Here part of the curriculum was to go on two 6- month apprenticeships - seeing this as the perfect way for me to satisfy my restless need for travel, still get a bit of schooling, and a degree - it was the perfect fit. When I wasn't molding tarts and kneading dough, my time was spent with wet hair and bare feet at all the closest swimming holes. I was able to use my pentax photographing my friends in my element - encased by mountains, sharing food by lakes, streams, and waterfalls.
The time for my first apprenticeship was rapidly approaching and I was still without. I only had 3 requirements - a brick oven, crusty artisan bread, and somewhere along the Pacific Ocean. On a whim I wrote to a little brick oven bakery located on Vancouver island, in the capital of British Columbia. The next day I woke up to the response of, "yes, we can do that". I was so excited. I made all the moves to be able to work and reside in Canada. I found a sweet cabin behind a family's house and began my work as a bread baker. It was a slow beginning, turning out 400 loaves a day isn't easy, not to mention that I was so far from anything familiar, but by the end it was so difficult say goodbye. In Victoria, my eyes are never bored, drinking in all the moss, trees that make you feel so small, and an ocean that always has white-capped mountains somewhere along the horizon. I did it again - met amazing people, shared food with them, and used my money for traveling to and from all the unbelievable nature and the film to document them.
I wish I could present you with some coherent five year plan, but I can't. All I can promise is that I will keep following my passions. My life will continue to be a journey of food, photography, travel, but ultimately the pervading theme will be art. No matter where I am I will turn my surroundings into a means for expression, and that is enough of a 5 year plan for me.
I still, by no means, consider myself a professional photographer or baker, but I do hope that my work reminds of the things that bind us all, that all you need to do is look.
I transfered to a culinary school in Providence - the furthest I've ever been away from home - I didn't know anyone. I nested into the sweetest cottage loft, still baking, still photographing, and after a month of isolation I finally made my first friend - a photography major at the Rhode Island School of Design, she was the first one to help me see my potential with photography. Sharing macaroni and cheese at the downtown bar, she drew up the technicalities of the camera, instructing me on aperture, shutter speed, ISO - all the basics. My photos got a bit better and I made birthday cakes for the new friends I was making. She gifted me with my first film camera - the camera that is still always by my side - a Pentax K1000.
After fully accepting that the culinary school in Providence wasn't the best fit, I moved up - to a small cooking and baking school in the middle of Vermont. Here part of the curriculum was to go on two 6- month apprenticeships - seeing this as the perfect way for me to satisfy my restless need for travel, still get a bit of schooling, and a degree - it was the perfect fit. When I wasn't molding tarts and kneading dough, my time was spent with wet hair and bare feet at all the closest swimming holes. I was able to use my pentax photographing my friends in my element - encased by mountains, sharing food by lakes, streams, and waterfalls.
The time for my first apprenticeship was rapidly approaching and I was still without. I only had 3 requirements - a brick oven, crusty artisan bread, and somewhere along the Pacific Ocean. On a whim I wrote to a little brick oven bakery located on Vancouver island, in the capital of British Columbia. The next day I woke up to the response of, "yes, we can do that". I was so excited. I made all the moves to be able to work and reside in Canada. I found a sweet cabin behind a family's house and began my work as a bread baker. It was a slow beginning, turning out 400 loaves a day isn't easy, not to mention that I was so far from anything familiar, but by the end it was so difficult say goodbye. In Victoria, my eyes are never bored, drinking in all the moss, trees that make you feel so small, and an ocean that always has white-capped mountains somewhere along the horizon. I did it again - met amazing people, shared food with them, and used my money for traveling to and from all the unbelievable nature and the film to document them.
I wish I could present you with some coherent five year plan, but I can't. All I can promise is that I will keep following my passions. My life will continue to be a journey of food, photography, travel, but ultimately the pervading theme will be art. No matter where I am I will turn my surroundings into a means for expression, and that is enough of a 5 year plan for me.
I still, by no means, consider myself a professional photographer or baker, but I do hope that my work reminds of the things that bind us all, that all you need to do is look.