Jamie Beck went looking for inspiration and wound up moving to Provence, where she spends her time studying artwork, buying handfuls of fresh flowers and taking self-portraits. She is the ultimate belle of southern France– a New York ex-pat with a touch of tradition, femininity, tenderness, and an Instagram gallery that could compete with museums. Her shots are art pieces themselves, oftentimes influenced by famous paintings. Beck creates photographs with a story in mind, a set, and emotion, each one meticulously thought out.
In a world where virtually anyone can be a so-called “photographer,” Beck is as real as it gets to knowing her trade inside-out. Since the age of 13, the Texas-born photographer has studied every possible aspect of her camera. She still, however, prefers shooting on film, with natural light, grain and contrast.
Portrait inspired by the work of surrealist photographer Philippe Halsman
A year ago, Jamie Beck moved to a place that had tempted her for years. After a slightly terrifying airplane experience she decided she could not go on without having lived in France. Packed with her favorite peasant shirts, suitcases of camera equipment and pure talent, Jamie moved to a small village that is quite the polar opposite of noisy and modern NYC.
Poppies, cheeses, church bells, etc. Her new home has withered walls. Her new traditions include baguette-shopping every morning. Jamie is no longer rushing through crowds of yellow taxis in her strictly black attire. Every day is now filled with artistic studies, experiments, nature, and herself. She documents her everyday life under #my_so_called_french_life.
A quick look at her feed shows that Jamie is her own best model, a true artist that knows exactly what she wants her work to convey. Pictured below, Jamie captioned: “I play with these contrasts by wearing men’s clothing which still reveal my female form. One hand is hard and strong, the other soft and gathered. A sharp focused expression framed by wild unruly hair. It is a portrait of determination, where a woman finds inside herself the masculine strength.”
Within the year of moving to Provence, her photography and relationship with herself has undergone a revelation, slowly undressing years of New York off her skin.
Beck’s photo series of auto-portraits #Provenceselfportraitseries is her most up-to-date portfolio of her skill, confidence, and beauty. These shots reintroduce beauty in an almost brutal world of digital photography.
The graininess, the soft edges, and warm tones soothe her own differences with her southern family that does not support the nudity in her work too.
She, however, becomes even more motivated, celebrating female form like a Renaissance woman, writing odes to nature like Monet, none without with a flair of Jamie Beck.
Each work has the allure of a painting, almost a new form of photography. Speaking of, Jamie and her husband Kevin Burg have already done that by coining the cinemagraph (still photos with subtle motion like the one pictured below.)
