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

Masthead header

Category Archives: TO THE OPEN ROAD

April 26, 2013

(THIS IS A PICTURE I DID NOT TAKE)

…of the dark road ahead of us, mountains to the left, ocean to the right, our headlights the only thing faintly illuminating the way. Highway 1 on the California coast at night, and a shooting star flashed across the huge expanse of black, it took away our breath, made us hold hands and smile. Twenty six days on the road and this was our last. Headed home, to the next unknown destination, with full hearts and clear eyes, and memories enough to fill a book. We realized that what was important was how we got there, to our final destination where we spent a grand total of seven hours before flying home. The miles of road behind us and the stories we saw and experiences we shared with people were what mattered, not the end destination. This is a picture I did not take with a camera, instead I took this one with my head and my heart. :)

these past few months we’ve slowly been sharing about our roadtrip out west last november (click the tag ‘november road trip‘ if you want to browse through the archives!)… we set out on our trip with the desire to experience travel in a different way, a way that did not revolve around sights and tourist destinations but as much as we could around people and where they lived and what was important to them. we wanted to give back to people that had meant something to us and also to complete strangers, something from our heart and for us that was photos… i’m sure there were many ways in which we fell short of this goal, but still we learned so much and i am so thankful that we made this trip happen. those four weeks of traveling were some of the best… if you ever get the chance to just pack up and go, i couldn’t recommend it more. it might not even be as hard to do as you may think… an adventure may lay just outside your front door in many cases. we’d just encourage you to take whatever chance you get. many thanks for following along as we’ve shared! we’re now taking suggestions for the next adventure in the comments section below… ;)

 

Posted in: TO THE OPEN ROAD | WE BELIEVETags: |

by JENN

LEAVE US A COMMENT HERE

athena - I want you to come to MN. I want you to meet my daughters. I want to wake up groggy, smiles still covering our faces from the night before, and make you fresh donuts and pressed coffee. But this isn’t about me – I want you to go out and explore more. Adventure more. Live. The way you’ve been doing. It’s sooooo remarkable to experience through you -for those of us that can’t go out and do.

It’s soul filling, really. I mean it.

You two are magical. Go where there’s magic. <3

anda - you know i love your images, but you should do more of these “picture i did not take” vignettes. i love this.

April 24, 2013

MARY AND THE JOEL AND AN AIRSTREAM

Traveling with a view to connect with as many people as possible along the way is really humbling. We’d never before really traveled the way that we did on our trip out to the west coast in November… the number of kind souls that opened their doors to us, fed us, had amazing conversation with us, basically invited us in with open arms…. it was the best thing possible I could have hoped to have gained from this experience.

Mary and Joel are two of those kind souls, and they were our last stop on the way from Toronto to Los Angeles. We said goodbye to them overlooking Monterey Bay sometime in the mid-afternoon and booked it to LA to catch our early morning flight the next day to fly home. These two. We met them in Portland (where they live) earlier that year as we both attended the same photography conference and we felt like we’d connect again at some point.. part way through our trip we heard from them that they were spending a few weeks in their airstream and would we have time to stop by to catch up? Yes. We met in Santa Cruz and they took us up the mountains outside of town to the plot of land where they and their two cats have their airstream parked. The view is incredible, we sat in the warm sun and ate deep fried burritos together… and our friendship was sealed :)

These guys inspire us in their attitudes about life and in their enthusiasm for living adventurously. Their Portland/Airstream way of life is unconventional and awesome and one that we give a hearty two thumbs up to.

We made this for them below, we just had this picture of them in our minds, driving from rainy Portland to their little sunny getaway and so we made this little video :)

Posted in: EVERYONE HAS A STORY | TO THE OPEN ROADTags: | | | | |

by JENN

LEAVE US A COMMENT HERE

amanda vanvels - i love it!!!!!! what an amazing life they must live. that airstream is so cute and so are they :)

Hannah Nicole - AHHHHHHHH YOU GUYS.
seriously, blow me away everytime. they are the cutest.

Liz - mum - Would it amaze you to know that Jim and I often talked about getting an airstream trailer and becoming vagabonds?

Amanda - You all know each other! That is so happy & perfect!! We heart Mary & Joel. & you. & this.

MELANIE GAILUNAS - simply lovely! miss the marvelous mary & joel! thank you Jenn & Dave for the beautiful sneak peek into their current adventure!

Julia - Monterey, Half Moon Bay, Santa Cruz all have so much meaning to me because I lived there for about 5 years. I could feel that place through your photographs. Brought me home.

April 11, 2013

A DAY IN SAN FRANCISCO..

there are a handful of cities in the world where the minute i stepped into them, i knew i could live there. sf became one of them in the first thirty seconds.

also, our first night in san francisco we had driven all day and were tired so we ordered indian food and i found the joy of painting with bob ross on tv. if you grew up watching the joy of painting with bob ross on tv then you know exactly what i’m talking about. :)

oooh and i thought i’d share a few of our SAN FRANCISCO’S MUST VISITS..

1. The Phoenix Hotel, such a cool vibe 2. FourBarrel Coffee, busy for good reason 3. The Golden Gate bridge on a foggy day. We were so lucky to spend a warm sunny day in sf, but i found watching the fog and listening to the foghorns the morning we left immensely peaceful. Even though we were only there for a day and spent most of it just walking the neighbourhoods, I definitely left my heart in San Francisco, November 2012 :)

Posted in: TO THE OPEN ROADTags: | | | |

by JENN

LEAVE US A COMMENT HERE

athena - Bob Ross! Yes!! I want to go paint some Happy Trees now! (and I love these images of you. especially the selfie that dave took of the two of you together. xo)

Kim - Hi – I came across this post after being directed to another from Beata English (the one about stepping back from social media chaos) :) Clicked through to this one as I lived in SF for almost 5 years… You’ve captured the spirit of the city in your beautiful images and I am now missing it all over again. Like you, when I landed in the city, I knew straight away it was somewhere I could live. Thanks for sharing…
- Kim

April 10, 2013

ADVENTURES THROUGH THE REDWOODS AND DOWN THE WEST COAST

I was challenged the other week to ‘find joy where you are‘. I have the quote hanging up in my office now. You guys… I didn’t realize how this phrase would totally convict me. Because sometimes, honestly.. I’m in kind of a perpetual state of wanderlust. :)  I just want to pack up my bags and go most of the time. Sure, I miss home and love being back home after being away for a while, of course.. but sooner or later it hits me and I want to go again. I just love seeing new things, exploring the little fraction of the world that I can. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, and we’ve been super fortunate (and have always put a huge priority on) traveling… really every spare penny goes towards it… and I think we always will. But still, I feel the challenge to find joy where you are, whether that is somewhere new or somewhere you’ve seen many times before. I think it’s fine to long for something in the future (travel or otherwise), but the challenge comes from not letting the joy of where you are now escape you. How often, even when we are somewhere we love, or doing something we love, do we still pine to be somewhere else, and allow the goodness of where we are right now escape us?

These are some photos from our journey from Portland down the west coast to San Francisco. There are a lot of photos.. :) It is such a breathtaking part of the world, and the minute we were out on the road we looked at each other and said “I wish we had more time here”. But….. find joy where you are. Those few short days were what we had and I wish we’d soaked it up even more than we did. Those few short days I remember as my feet up on the dashboard with the guy I love beside me, perpetually looking at the time and one of us finally saying quietly ‘we really need to get going’. Please, if you ever get the chance to drive this stretch of road, don’t turn it down. What follows is just a glimpse of why. xo, jenn

The coast of Oregon & northern California.. November, 2012

Posted in: TO THE OPEN ROAD | WE BELIEVETags: | | | | |

by JENN

LEAVE US A COMMENT HERE

Taylor - Yes and Yes. I am soo excited to head west this weekend and this got me so much more pumped.

Hannah Nicole - hooked from the first picture. these are so lovely. everytime you write or shoot, it makes me want to travel and live fully. and now, I’m itching to visit this place. :)

athena - The frame of you, Jenn, in front of the ocean took my breath away. Literally. I audibly gasped. The manner and amount with which you love each other is present in every single image you shoot of one another and your portraits of the other are some of my most favorite – oops, I mean favourite – pieces of your work.

The shot driving into Cannon Beach is remarkable. And the waves. Love this post – and I love your thoughts on joy. xx

sharon johnston - just beautiful :) Ty and I are hoping to head down that way come September..would love to hear all your fav spots!

Tracy Z - All this nature is so gorgeous, pretty much everything I miss about living on the west coast!

Chris Creed - These are ridiculous. That is all.

April 1, 2013

DON’T GIVE UP

..

This past week we have found ourselves nestled in the mountains of Colorado, rubbing our eyes and scratching our heads and being generally in awe at finding ourselves there. This trip was not anticipated but as we’ve come home and let it soak in, we are struck again by the serendipity of life and realization that we needed the clear blue skies, the lodge in the woods, and the conversations with the incredible souls we met there more than we could have known. We knew it would be fantastic but we really had little idea how much we would be changed.

Coming home has felt like leaving summer camp, with that same hole inside of you, the hole that each person has left behind. The depths to which everyone shared and loved was incredible, and I realized that I’m not always as open or as loving as I want to be. We left with that same hope that even though we are gone from that home Ashley & Jeremy Parsons made and invited us all into, we will continue to remember and take up the call to create fantastic stories out of our lives, and to create images that really matter for the people we connect with.  Dave and I can’t thank you Ash & Jeremy enough for the gifts you’ve given us… !!

Words really do fail in these cases to describe experiences like this, so that is why I lean back on images :) A short film up there ^^ and a few stills down below, of our time out in Colorado, that serve to take us back and remind us of everything.

Be brave, be you, and don’t give up you guys. xo, jenn

Divide, Colorado, March 2013

Posted in: TO THE OPEN ROAD | WE BELIEVETags: | | | | |

by JENN

LEAVE US A COMMENT HERE

athena - my heart is so full, you guys. watching this video brings me right back to that lovely little lodge and i can hear the laughter and the wind and the crunching of the snow. i have a smile a mile wide right now. i’m sooooo thankful (#soblessed) that i get to experience life with the two of you as my friends, and will always always treasure those three days in the mountains. thank you for helping me remember what it looked like through your eyes and felt like through your hearts.

you are remarkable

athena pelton photography | Minnesota Wedding Photographer - [...] A huge ginormous and heart felt thank you to Jenn and Dave for the perfect and awesome and amazing image of me at the top of this post. You can check out their recap of our weekend together here. [...]

Hannah Nicole - Oh my goodness sakes. This makes my heart so happy. WONDERFUL, you two. really beautiful. (I’ve been wanting to go to the DGUP for so long and all these lovely and inspiring posts from this year’s have just made me so excited…can’t wait until I’m old enough to attend. :) )

amanda vanvels - unreal. i’m speechless. this is so great. the photos, the video. you guys are amazing and i’m so happy our paths got to cross. thank you guys for being wonderful friends and wonderful photographers. i miss you guys so much already!

megan alvarez - These are completely stunning! Such a great document of our time together. I miss you guys (and everyone)a ton!!!

Kristin Moore - Jenn & Dave! What an incredible post. The film and photos are amazing and help me relive our shared, amazing experience. So grateful to know you all and so inspired by you!!!!

jenny l. - Jenn and Dave, you are inspiring. I really enjoy seeing the world, and especially this trip, through your eyes. I love that shot of Athena and Amanda together towards the end, something about it just emanates the closeness we gained in those three short days. I won’t give up…on coming to Toronto to see you two. :) So much love.

Julia Wade - love and beauty in every moment and every frame.. i am so grateful to know & love the both of you. thank you for capturing what it felt like to be there and to experience what we did. xo

Kelly - I just want to say “exactly!” to everything you wrote. Everything. There is so much life in your images – they take me right back. Thank you for sharing so much of yourselves during our days together. You two are something special, and I’m so so glad that I can count you as my friends.

ash - WOW WOW WOW, you guys. the images, the slideshow, even the song…it’s all so perfect and takes us back. thank you so so much for being there, for being brave enough to take a chance on us. :) y’all are amazing.i

jenn - the slideshow is amazing, jenn and dave! i always love your slideshow. and each time, i was taken aback by your talent. looks like an amazing weekend you two had!

you are invited to go on an adventure with us // the don’t give up project // divide, colorado // july 1-3, 2013 » wearethebloggers - [...] a few images from the last one: (thanks a million to amanda, athena, nate+amanda, kristin, and the starks for the wonderful images you made – a few which are shared here. we love [...]

MORE STORIES THIS WAY »