Christmas Day

Merry Christmas everyone! Here are some family photos from Christmas Day. I hope you are enjoying your holiday season!

Justin

My brother Greg, taking a snooze in front of the fire

Mama Warren's breakfast breads

My brother and cousin in matching flannel

Menu del Dia

Tomorrow my friend Tyler is driving through the treacherous blizzard from PA with three brave friends to come to visit me in Vermont. I am so excited, I love having visitors. Especially ones I haven't seen in a long time, or met yet at all! You know I'm a sucker for meeting new people, it's completely my favorite. We will eat home cooked food and drink local beer and wine to show them how the locals do things, which means we'll be sampling a bunch of The Shed. The Shed is the microbrew of the season, taking anyone with a keg tap for miles around by storm. Amazing, delicious, incredible beer. Go! Drink it! At the very least, do so to keep warm! I do love to show off our rugged tundra up here, and I'm lucky that these guys will be the first of several guests over the next couple of weeks. 

Even though we're going to be shooting some wild-air skiing in the next couple of days, I thought I'd post a photo from an afternoon in Barcelona, where Tyler and I met. This is a typical trendy cafe in El Born serving lunch, where you order from the  delicious menu del dia. He and I spent a hunk of time wandering around the city shooting and exploring while we lived there. 

I miss the Spanish rhythm of life most during dark, cold days like these, so I'm hoping Tyler and his friend bring me a little zing! 

Menu del dia gently guides you right into the obligatory afternoon siesta. This guy has it down rocking the stoop outside a gallery. 

Typical plaza decoration, El Born. 

When Tyler and I see each other tomorrow, we will do this. I'll be the one in the Euro-mullet and he'll be the one making the awkward bunny-face. 

Craig

It's my friend Craig's birthday, so this post is a celebration! We have the same jacket, more or less. 

Istanbul is Grey

Just a week into life in Vermont and I'm restless. I am currently researching grant and fellowship opportunities for the summer, when I hope to return to Turkey for a more extended visit before beginning my professional career in the States. Please contact me with any information you might have on grants. I am also looking for a travel buddy for this trip, tentatively set for the month of June, so message me if you are seriously interested. 

Business out of the way, here are some more nostalgic photos from my last trip to Istanbul. These photos are from our second and third days in the city, where we got around lesser-known nooks and crannies with the help of two other Couch Surfers, Ozge and Arda. Ozge took us to a depressed neighborhood where many Turkish photographers go to shoot. It was sad and beautiful all at once. With Arda we went to the Golden Horn and some waterfront areas. We had great conversation, ate great food, and witnessed a very stereotypical cat and dog fight. 

I know these photos are over a year old, but I want to get the stories down before I forget. Besides, I have little motivation to brave the cold to shoot too much right now, plus I'm working. 

Fishermen in the park where we met Ozge

Fishing boat

Women in the neighborhood Ozge took us to

Turkish flag, Ozge

Local boy who loved to get his photo taken!

Ortaköy

Grizzled old fisherman who we discovered was also a photographer. He did not speak English but had a rousing conversation with Arda, who translated. Couch Surfing has so many upsides!

Michael's socks in the mosque in Ortaköy

I think I gave him my email address. We had a nice chat.

Our photography group, including Arda. 

Oh so surprising, cats in Istanbul?! 

On our final morning, Monica and Tyler left to fly back to Barcelona early. Mike and I stayed behind to take the ferry over the Bosphorus and listen to it the way our Turkish friend Firat had instructed. 

He was right; you understand Istanbul if you listen to the grey water. The soul of the city is old and it is fighting to discover a new identity in the modern age. Old glories remain but are just that: they are a a piece of the past. This summer I hope to continue to explore how the modern Istanbul is developing atop the foundation of civilization that used to be the city. The layers of identity in the city are breathtaking. 

Tundra

I'm living in Vermont for a month. It's like this.

New Muse

I could shoot the stunning Kaitlin Healy for days. And will. 

God help us all, she's smart, fiesty, beautiful, and is on her way to speaking three languages. How do you say stone cold fox in Arabic and Mandarin?

She's my muse for the next month.

A touch of sass & class

I successfully roused myself and fixed the storage limits on the blog, so I'm back in action once more. Now that I'm in Vermont in full holiday-mode, there are plenty of parties full of trendy friends in their finest frippery to photograph (say that five times fast)! One perk of having a birthday around this time of year is that parties are a-plenty. 

I hope you are feeling festive too, fine followers. I do enjoy a little consonance now and then. 

Taken by Claudia Pawlikowski

Coffee and Lace, mornings

I didn't take this, I found it on one of my favorite blogs, Lolita. The light is the same all day now since the sun never really rises much here...the shortest day of the year is almost here. Long shadows, cold snow. This is kind of how I like mornings. 

Other Goodies

Happy Holiday season everyone! Now that my birthday is past I can finally let myself get into the spirit. I really love Christmas, but don't like how early things start. I'd rather start the week before and have a high-quality celebration! I am in full-swing holiday party mode, with parties almost every night. I am taking a minor break from blogging for a few days while I get my holiday self together (waiting until the last minute to do anything Christmas-related has its downsides), and will then return with new photos galore. I am shooting a whole slew of people here in Vermont for the next month, so please contact me if you are interested in working together! 

For the holidays, I am passing along my shortlist of blogs that I follow regularly. Many have to do with fashion but with a photography twist. Either way, they're all eye-candy. Enjoy!

Garance Doré is a French street fashion illustrator and photographer, and she dates GW collaborator and street photographer The Sartorialist. I met the pair of them while I was living in Barcelona at a fabulous event for the release of The Sartorialist's book signing. Rockstar Diaries documents the life of a young, trendy couple in DC, and The Glamourai is a stylist and artist based in New York City. Lolita is a Swedish photography blog that is at once beautiful and simple, and Terry's Diary is raunchy photographer Terry Richardson's personal blog. 

There are loads and loads more, but these are my go-to's. Enjoy checking them out, and have a safe and beautiful holiday season with friends and family.

So Fortunate

Today I woke up to a video from my very dear friend Firat who lives in Istanbul, Turkey. I heard from a myriad of friends across the United States and the world for my birthday yesterday, and this video was the perfect way to close it out. 

I will tell you a little bit about Firat and I.

So last December I went on a trip to Istanbul with three friends.

Mike, who flew from Vermont to Barcelona to see me. We then went to Vienna for a few hours to eat sausage and drink hot rum at the Christmas markets before almost missing our plane because of said rum.  We made our connection and flew to Istanbul together. 

Where we met up with Monica, my roommate and best friend in Barcelona. She is from California, and is a fantastic graphic designer and photographer. You can find her stuff here.

And  Tyler, who lived in Barcelona with me. He is an independent adventurer who is always down for any wacky thing I propose. (He is coming here to Vermont after Christmas to visit me!)

So we had our little group of American photographers, but no way around Istanbul. Fortunately for Couch Surfing, I received no less than 75 offers from locals to show us around their beautiful city. I ended up choosing three different hosts, including Firat. 

He took us all over the city, showing us many sites of the old city, and the whole way providing wonderful commentary. 

We went to the Hagia Sophia, among other places. Firat showed us where Vikings had left graffiti in the ancient stone. 

The beautiful royal palace

And always places with so many cats. It is Istanbul, after all. 

We also went to the Grand Bazaar and other little bazaars.

After that we were tired and needed a rest, so we went to Taksim Square. 

Just kidding, there is no resting occurring here!! 

We went to drink the super-Turkish beer Efes, which Mike (and the rest of us) really loved. A lot. But not as much as Firat, haha.  

The good bars are all on the terraces of Istanbul, and the roof retracts to show us the Turkish moon. 

Here is our wonderful Istanbul crew. 

That is the story of how I met Firat. Our adventures continued again in Istanbul, and then again when he came to visit Vermont this past summer. I am so lucky to have such a wonderful friend!

And with that, I am dismayed to announce that I have reached the free storage limit the Google and Blogger so generously give me. It may take me a few days to figure out the best way to continue forward with the blog, but I promise I will be back as soon as I can. I love hearing that so many of you follow my blog regularly...please do not hesitate to let me know if you follow, and what you like. I love to share my photos and life with you, so share back. Send me things of yours that I can blog! 

Much love and happy holidays,

Katie

Winter Flannel

Secret...today is my birthday. Shhh....I had to work, but swathed myself in soft flannel pants and my favorite kimono jacket to combat the cold, and will don sky-high platforms to go get drinks later tonight. The Vermont cold is getting to me worse than usual, so here are a couple of cozy flannel photos to keep you warm. The last one is of me, and one of the few of me taken on my camera at last weekend's party. If anyone knows who took it, please let me know so I can give credit! I love how grainy it is; that is very indicative of the nature of that point in the night (sometime around 3am?). 

Stay warm friends.