A Year of Mornings: 3191 Miles Apart - Softcover

Maria Alexandra Vettese; Stephanie Congdon Barnes

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1568987846 ISBN 13: 9781568987842

Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press, 2008

Synopsis

The morning hours before the hustle and bustle of the day commences is the perfect time to pause and enjoy a sense ofrenewal and vitality. On the morning of December 7, 2006, Maria Alexandra Vettese and Stephanie Congdon Barnes eachtook a digital photo of everyday objects randomly arranged on their kitchen tables and, unbeknownst to one another,uploaded them to the website Flickr. Noticing a remarkable similarity between their images, they agreed to documenttheir mornings by posting one photo to a shared blog every weekday for a year. Their site, 3191 (http://3191.visualblogging.com)named after the distance in miles between their homes in Portland, Maine, and Portland, Oregonquickly acquired a worldwide following of devotees fascinated by the magical coincidences and pictorial synchronicity of their photographic pairings.

A Year of Mornings collects 236 imagesalways taken before 10 am without discussion between the two womenfrom this uniquely 21st-century artistic collaboration. The intimacy of these photographsdiscarded clothing, a view of a snowy day from the window, a tableclothcombined with their striking similarities in color and composition defies the reality of their long-distance collaboration. While clearly kindred spirits, the two women have met in person only once. Their friendship is maintained solely online, sustained by a shared love for moments of serenity, solitude, and peacefulness. The annotated photographs in A Year of Mornings radiate an aura of sweetness and lightthe promise of a new day.

About this title

Review:

Amazon Best Books of the Month, December 2008: Imagine for a second what it would be like if you could see again--in one grand and lovely collection--all of the precious moments you've ever seen. That's what it feels like to flip through A Year of Mornings, and even though the authors have set their sights on their own surroundings, you'll recognize in their photos a familiar, physical sense of joy experienced in daily rituals. Born out of a year-long visual blogging project, the book profiles passing early-morning moments at home shared between two women living 3,191 miles apart. What started as a meeting of two creative minds became a close friendship that went on to inspire a huge community of readers (whose participation in the project is paid tribute at the end with a month-by-month section of the authors' favorite posted comments). As the book progresses from season to season, you can see a kind of kindred vision taking shape between them, so much so that after a while it doesn't really matter which pictures are Stephanie's or which are Maria's. Their story is a welcome reminder that the opportunities to take notice of life's simple beauty are never as rare as you may think. --Anne Bartholomew

Book Description:

To Which I Aspire, "In a roundabout, blog-surfing kind of way today, I came across this: A Year of Mornings, 3191 Miles Apart. The co-authors of this book both photographed their mornings each day for a year and uploaded the photos to Flickr, totally unbeknownst to the other. And then the Princeton Architectural Press picked up the book idea and published it. Lucky (talented) ducks.The work is really lovely." -- Annabelle

About this edition

• Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1568987846
• ISBN 13: 9781568987842
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 208