Jamie Beck
We all dream of leaving our day to day lives and escaping to an idyllic fantasy in France, but photographer Jamie Beck actually got up and did it. After building a successful career in New York City, the photographer and co inventor of the Cinemagraph moved to Provence, seeking something new. She ended up staying for good and her work has been transformed by her Provencal setting. Here we speak to Jamie about the creative shifts in her life and work, her newly released book, and the role that nature now plays in her life.
WHAT IS YOUR EARLIEST MEMORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY?
When I was a child, my mother showed me her 1970s old Pentax film camera around the age of 13.
“I will never forget the first time I looked through the view finder, it was as if the imaginary world I dreamed in my mind became alive through the distortion of that glass.”
I fell instantly in love with photography. It’s all I’ve ever done, and all I’ve ever known.
CAN YOU SHARE YOUR JOURNEY TO BECOMING A PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER?
I began shooting photography jobs when I was in high school! Weddings, modeling portfolios, you name, I shot it.
“It was the best way to learn, by doing!”
TELL US ABOUT YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY STYLE DURING YOUR YEARS AT ANN STREET STUDIO IN NEW YORK.
I studied commercial and fashion photography at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York and after graduating I stayed in the city working as a photographer until eventually in 2012, I opened Ann Street Studio, my first commercial photography studio space on Ann Street in Lower Manhattan. Back then, all of my projects were fashion, jewelry, lifestyle, and product based using a lot of heavy lighting equipment and large cumbersome cameras. At that time my clients included brands such as Chopard, Tiffany & Co., Volvo, Netflix, and Disney to name a few.
“It was a challenging, exciting, exhausting, growing time in my life.”
I’m glad I had the courage to push myself to this level, but ultimately I would come to find out, this is really not who I am.
WHAT WAS THE IMPETUS BEHIND MOVING TO PROVENCE?
I was on a flight back to New York after a job oversees when the plane hit bad turbulence and I thought we were going to crash and my last thought was, “Great, now I’ll never know what it’s like to live in France.” I realized, if that’s my dying thought, that’s probably something I should go and do. The epiphany was so clear and true, in that moment it changed the entire course of my life.
“I made a promise to myself, if the plane landed I would move to France. One year later, that’s exactly what I did.”
DURING YOUR FIRST YEAR IN PROVENCE DID YOU NOTICE YOUR WORK START TO CHANGE?
Absolutely! I was in a foreign land with new light, new subjects, and for the first time in my life, time on my hands. I didn’t have to shoot products all day long, instead, I just had what was around me in my little apartment, what I could find on walks through the countryside, or at the market that comes to my village on Saturdays. It was freeing and I began to play again with photography. Ultimately, I fell back in love with both photography and creativity.
“Each day I woke up was ripe with possibility of what I might discover, about myself, about Provence, about nature, and how I might interrupt that through my lens.”
IS YOUR CREATIVE PROCESS DIFFERENT NOW TO WHEN YOU WORKED IN NEW YORK?
Completely! In New York I had to use a lot of lighting equipment to have consistency on long shoot days. Everything was preplanned. The only time I was able to be creative was in the pitching process to clients then the rest of the time was spent on production and execution. Now, in my life in Provence, my work is about what is happening on that day. Discovering it, creating with it, and using only the natural light as part of a character in the storytelling of this one moment in time.
“It is a celebration of the beauty of life, simply available to all of us if we learn to slow down and see.”
THE NATURAL WORLD SEEMS TO BE A HUGE INSPIRATION TO YOU NOW. HOW HAS THAT INFLUENCED YOUR WORK?
“The natural world is the sole focus of my work now.”
I think after so many years living in a concrete jungle and conditioned spaces, I began so detached from nature that I was dying inside. We are part of nature and when I began to live in harmony with it, with the seasons, in the landscape, the opposite happened. I began to bloom! I felt like a child again, in my grandmother’s backyard in Texas, playing with rollie-pollies and picking peaches off the tree. Deep down I was yearning for that simplicity that just feels organic and real. In Provence, the more I walk with nature, focus my gaze on her, the more stories she has to tell. I believe it is my job to capture and communicate that wonder, majesty, magic and beauty of Mother Nature.
AS AN AMERICAN IN PROVENCE, HOW DID THE LOCAL COMMUNITY REACT TO YOUR WORK?
For a long time, I was that strange non-French-speaking foreigner who wouldn’t go away. Eventually they became curious about who I was and slowly, we began to discover each other. At first, it was through small french lessons. How to count my change from the farmstand. How to order more or less cheese. When my cheesemonger, Clément, found out I was a photographer, he asked me if I would be interested in photographing some cheese for the decoration of his cart. That was the first big step toward becoming part of the community, and letting them see a bit of who I am.
“The French community is a truly beautiful, thriving, aspect to French culture and life here. They love art, they love discussing art and creating it, just for art’s sake.”
Countless times they have shown up at my door with flowers from their gardens, or messaged me when they found some dead bugs or butterflies for me to use in my photographs.
YOU SEEM TO POUR SO MUCH OF YOURSELF, PHYSICALLY AND EMOTIONALLY, INTO YOUR WORK. HOW DO YOU KEEP YOURSELF MOTIVATED AND ENERGIZED TO CONTINUE CREATING?
“Creating a photograph is my greatest joy and passion. It actually gives me energy to create!”
It is my purpose and I feel alive and at home in the art of photography. In a way, it helps me see and understand the world around me, and my place it in.
SOCIAL MEDIA IS A HUGE TOOL FOR YOU. CAN YOU SHARE HOW IMPORTANT IT WAS FOR YOU, PARTICULARLY DURING THE PANDEMIC?
During the 2020 government mandated lockdowns, I lost all my commercial jobs overnight, which was at that time how I made my living. I didn’t like the feeling of insecurity so I thought I would do something positive that I could control everyday. I decided I would create one piece of photographic art everyday and share on social media the process from start to finish, calling the series “#IsolationCreation” and asking others around the globe to join creating their own daily artworks and contributing to the community hashtag.
“The movement and my Isolation Creation series went viral and for 60 days I created within my small studio whatever I could find each day with the world watching.”
It was scary, not knowing what I would have to shoot, if a photograph would work out each day, but it also forced me to grow as an artist and photographer. Thankfully, we were able to begin selling posters of the series as I created them and that began my career as an art photographer and I’ve never looked back.
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE FUTURE OF SOCIAL MEDIA, ESPECIALLY AS IT RELATES TO PHOTOGRAPHERS AND ARTISTS LIKE YOURSELF?
I think it’s absolutely critical for artists to be on social media. It’s a powerful tool to not only be able to tell your story about your art as you wish for it to be viewed, but as a way for people to discover you and connect with what you are creating.
“That is all art is, connecting our lives, and there is no better way at this moment than through social media.”
WHAT OTHER ARTISTS OR CREATIVES DO YOU LOOK TO FOR INSPIRATION?
Honestly, I love classical art. In the evenings I play Medici.tv ballets or concerts. I love to watch Smarthistory on Youtube. And most of the artists I find inspiring, Botticelli, Monet, Titan, Caravaggio, Michelangelo, Van Gogh are from the past.
“My favorite days are ones where we mindlessly wander old European art museums and just let ideas and inspiration happen naturally looking at the Old Masters.”
LET'S TALK ABOUT YOUR NEW BOOK! WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO CREATE AN AMERICAN IN PROVENCE: ART, LIFE, AND PHOTOGRAPHY?
“After living in Provence for some years I had kept journals of my observations of French culture, French food, the landscape and seasons, and how I was changing.”
I studied it all, photographing everything along the way. When my literary agents reached out through social media, they said they saw a potential for a book. From that initial conversation, it took three more years to actually begin to put the book together because I was still living it. Still studying it. I had to wait until I felt as if I had something to say, an understanding of what this all is, before I could do a book. An American in Provence is both a diary of my intimate personal experiences here, recipes from meals I ate with friends, thoughts I had alone at night in a new and foreign world to me and how I grew as an artist into what I am today.
The photographs in the book span the six years I’ve been here. It took months of archival work to pull images for the book, and to edit down the thousands of photographs into the 204 that made it into the book.
“My hope is that for those who read it, can also embrace a slow life, a creative life.”
Creating can happen not only in creating a photograph but creating a beautiful meal, a flower arrangement for the dining table, or creating your own unique life.
WAS MOVING FROM PHOTOGRAPHY TO THE WRITTEN WORD A CHALLENGE?
Absolutely! It was the most challenging thing I have ever done. I’m a visual storyteller and the act of creating those stories is very physical and very much a reaction to the moment of life. But to write, to sit still for hours alone in the dark and silence combing the corridors of your mind to try the find the words, to piece together the story, was… torture. I’m proud of myself for doing it, but I deeply respect writers who can do this instinctively.
WHAT SURPRISED YOU THE MOST ABOUT THE BOOK PROCESS?
How draining and momentous and overwhelming it is to create a book, and just when you think it’s done, then you have to promote it which is a whole other job! But I have to say, it took blood, sweat, and tears and in the end it was all worth it.
“This book is the thing I am most proud of in my life.”
WHAT’S NEXT FOR YOU?
I would really love to do a show on Provence, and ultimately France! But in the meantime, more French lessons and a nice rest after a really intense year getting this book out into the world!
© All Photo Credit via Jamie Beck