JENN & DAVE STARK » husband + wife documentary photographer storytellers » welcome to our blog

sometimes almost as good as getting to travel is the getting excited before part… the planning out the days and anticipating all the things you’ll get to do + see. i’m in that mode right now. for the next few weeks dave + i have the pleasure of photographing in greece, and then we are lucky enough to be visiting my families in both turkey and the uk! we haven’t been in the uk since we lived there together five years ago.. i haven’t seen my family from turkey for over ten years now, and dave has never even met them in person, so we are pretty excited! we’ve been looking forward to this trip for a while now, but it feels surreal that it’s already here?!

me + my grandma // england

i’ve been thinking a lot about the last time i’ve been in these places + seen these people. the last time we were in england, we were just married and were working as teachers and pretty much didn’t have a clue! it was that year that we fell in love with photography. it was only five years ago, but feels like a lifetime. the last time i was in turkey was when i was fourteen years old! definitely a lot has changed since then, even though i’m sure that i thought i had life and myself figured out at that ripe old age (don’t we all?). mostly when i think back to that person i was, i see someone who was pretty guarded around others. i observed a lot but i think i was also pretty passive, and i think this was because i was afraid. i hope not to be that way anymore.

at nineteen, i traveled to mexico and spent some of my time there staying with a mexican family. one of my clearest memories is coming back to the house one night after a long + hot day doing sports programs for kids, and sitting on the floor of the living room with the father, who i hadn’t seen much of up to that point. we sat for maybe an hour, him asking me many questions about my life growing up, what canada was like, what i hoped to do in the future. he told me about himself, his life, and his hopes for his daughter who was around my age. his wife, who didn’t speak any english at all but kept me really well fed :) sat and listened to the conversation which continued until 11 or 12 at night with a smile on her face. i remember whenever there was a lull in the conversation, he would ask me ‘don’t you have any more questions to ask me??’ and that has stuck with me. i think maybe because it was the first time i can remember ever really finding out about a complete stranger in that way, and i think it awakened me to be more brave and ask more questions. and now i feel like i can’t get enough of hearing people’s stories. i can’t wait to listen for hours and soak up stories from the people i care so much about as we go on this trip.

me + my babaanne // turkey

i’m pretty lucky as we’ll be seeing all four of my grandparents! growing up without any family around the corner makes every chance i get to spend time with them pretty special. although it’s been a hectic couple of weeks preparing to leave our office and make sure we are all up to date with our work, it’s also been fun to dream and plan and get excited for this next little adventure….

i’d say i’m just about this excited:

hoping to post some updates as we go this time around.. we’ll see if the wi-fi gods smile down on us, so be sure to check back! can’t wait to share with you all what we see. also, thanking you kindly in advance for your patience on emails and such while we’re away. i promise we’ll try as best we can but we might be a few days. :) cheers, big ears!