Alice Proujansky Photography

Birdsnest, VA

Alice Proujansky — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 16:49:16 +0000

Recently, I had occasion to go on a honeymoon to Birdsnest, VA. It was very landscapey there: beautiful light and grasses – and I fought off a strong army of bugs to bring you these beautiful sights.

A Fresh Pair of Eyes

Alice Proujansky — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 20:46:03 +0000

I got a new camera on Friday, and took it with me on my weekend.

Tuba City

Alice Proujansky — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 15:58:16 +0000

Here is one last group of photos from my New York Times piece about maternity care in Tuba City, AZ. I took these pictures in March of 2010, in and around the Tuba City Regional Health Care Corporation’s Women’s Clinic and OB ward.

Uutsi’yma’s Hopi Naming Ceremony

Alice Proujansky — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 14:59:37 +0000

After Monica Kahe gave birth to her fourth child at the Tuba City Regional Health Care Corporation, she kept him indoors, away from the sun, for three weeks. Monica is a teacher on the Hopi reservation, and her husband Preston works at the hospital. On the morning of the last day, his relatives came over before the sun rose, bringing corn pudding, mutton stew, and blue corn meal to exchange as gifts.

They dabbed blue corn meal on Monica’s face, washed mother and baby’s hair, and waited for sunrise. When the night started to fade, the baby’s mother, aunt and grandmother brought him outside to meet the sun, and his grandmother read the long list of names that his paternal female relatives had given him. He would be called Uutsi’yma.

Afterward, the guests laughed and talked while eating mutton stew, corn pudding and cherry pie for breakfast. I was grateful that Monica had invited me to photograph the ceremony, and happy to have met her warm family.

These photographs were first published in the New York Times.

Portraits of Joan Gussow

Alice Proujansky — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 20:31:04 +0000

Last September, I photographed Joan Gussow in her suburban garden on the Hudson for Edible Manhattan. She is an 81-year-old pioneering nutritionist, locavore and food thinker who has shaken up the nutrition world and influenced Michael Pollan. As she says, “I like my ideas to be taken up and they have been, so I’m satisfied.”

Joan showed me her small, organized and plentiful garden; told me stories and fixed up her Brussels sprouts. She sent me home with arms full of Australian basil, chard, trifoliate oranges from Barbara Kingsolver, and a few beautiful beans that I keep in my camera bag for good luck.

You can see the article in the March/April issue of Edible Manhattan.

Lactation Consultant in Tuba City

Alice Proujansky — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:43:49 +0000

I recently traveled to Tuba City, AZ on assignment for the New York Times. I went to photograph a story that I had found: a hospital in a small, dusty reservation town had remarkably low Cesarean rates, provided midwives at all deliveries, and allowed women with previous C-sections to deliver vaginally (VBAC). Here are the resulting article and the audio slide show.

This is a small story within the larger story.

Elsie Elthie is a lactation consultant at the Tuba City Regional Health Care Corporation. She visits nursing mothers in the hospital and at home to teach them how to successfully breastfeed their babies. Though it may sound straightforward, nursing can be complicated and painful, and informed advice can mean the difference between breast milk and formula.

Harlem Children’s Zone

Alice Proujansky — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 20:26:09 +0000

Here are some photographs I took for a series of City Limits articles about the Harlem Children’s Zone. From City Limits:

Founded by a committed advocate for low-income children, nurtured by the politically powerful and Wall Street titans, and lauded by media around the world, the Harlem Children’s Zone has raised a nation’s hopes. The Obama administration wants to use it as the model for a nationwide antipoverty plan. But what is really known about the success of the Zone? Is there enough evidence to base a larger initiative around it? Are other cities capable of developing their own versions of the Harlem Miracle? In the new City Limits, read an in-depth evaluation of the program that’s inspiring the federal government’s most innovative poverty-fighting initiative in decades.

Grief

Alice Proujansky — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 19:17:12 +0000

I recently attended the funeral of a beloved family member. He was buried on the farm where he grew up, carried by his seven brothers in a homemade coffin, and his father asked me to take pictures.

I find that photographs start to sort out the incomprehensible, and taking photographs helps me to contain grief and horror, but I was surprised to find that his family thought so, too. I hadn’t brought my camera but was able to borrow a point-and-shoot.

I was grateful to bend my mind to working, and finding photographs, and giving the family what I could. I can’t find the words, but I have the pictures.

Annalia’s Birth

Alice Proujansky — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 22:09:53 +0000

Megan called me in the evening to tell me she was in labor. I drove from New York to Massachusetts, flying on adrenaline, and got to the hospital at 1:00 in the morning. I saw a baby in a bassinet and my heart dropped – I was sure I’d missed the delivery. But a nurse told me I hadn’t, and walked me to a dark, peaceful room where Megan was in labor, assisted by her mother, her husband T.J., a midwife, nurse, doula and two friends.

Megan is a nurse in the emergency room of the hospital where she had her baby, as are the two friends who attended the birth. She labored through the night and delivered Annalia, her first child, at 9:00 in the morning. I was honored to welcome her.

Old Cameras

Alice Proujansky — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:56:52 +0000

These cameras are stuck in a box, and I have so many new photos stuck in my computer box. I would love to show them to you but I can’t, because I’m waiting for the publications to come out first! In the meantime, I’ll tell you about these cameras.

Most of them belonged to my grandfather, John Deely. He was an engineer, amateur photographer, model train collector, and mild eccentric. He collected train schedules, but never traveled. He loved to take photos, but only of trains and his family. I haven’t used the cameras because most of them take discontinued film sizes, but it is lovely to look at them and imagine what he saw.