somewhere between a handshake and two kisses

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Paige Green is a documentary and portrait photographer, whose storytelling approach to photography frequently addresses issues involving agriculture, land use, and food. Her work is featured in nine books and has been published in Glamour, National Geographic Traveler, New York Times Magazine, Conde Nast Traveler, GQ, Country Living, House Beautiful, and Culture. Paige lives in Petaluma, CA with a house full of boys.

  • Not named after the Bionic Woman for nothing…

    My best friend Lindsay, who is named after Lindsay Wagner the bionic woman, has always had an amazing talent for walking on her hands… which she has done, more times than I can count, in all the different countries and states we have lived in together.

    For her 30th birthday we went trapezing in Oakland. It was heaven for Lindsay. She was by far the best in the class. She ended the party with a release-flip-hand-grab-of-other-guy-on-a-swing-flip-land. (I am sure the move has a more technical name, but I don’t know what that is.) And don’t even think you can beat her on a trampoline; she still has battle scars from beating the last person who was so bold.

    Her dream is to compete on American Gladiator.

    Shortly after Lindsay’s all-star performance at her birthday party, she was helping her parents clean out their garage when she found a box with old photos of muscle-ly people doing stunts on a beach. And for the first time, after 30 years of inexplicably walking on her hands, Lindsay learned she was related to a man who was a stunt double for many famous actors, including Gene Kelly, and who was a fixture at Santa Monica’s Muscle Beach, instructing aspiring acrobats who trained there… and suddenly everything made sense.

    Lindsay is now writing a book about her flexible and muscle-ly long-lost relative. And because she is on a search for knowledge, we went to check out what Southern California’s Muscle Beach is like today, 70 years later.

    This is what we found…

    A 63-year-old hand-me-down American flag undies guy, who had more photos of himself with our dear governor Arnold, than he had teeth. He works out four times a week and it costs $2 to take his photograph… and he really wants you to take a picture of his butt.

    We also met his archrival… the young American flag undies guy who says he loaned the older American flag undies guy his old pair of American flag undies… and that was a little too much information.

    It costs $3 to take a photo with him and he gets to feel you up in the process.

    But it was a small price to pay for the photo that will soon be Lindsay’s author photo in the book she is writing about her uncle.

    Happy Birthday, Lindsay. I love every adventure we have together and I can’t wait to see what’s next.

  • To dress up, or not to dress up…

    This is Charlie, chef and co-owner of Pizzaiolo in Oakland, and the truck he uses to pick up his produce from the farmers’ markets.

    And this is his son, Eli.

    Charlie’s daughter, Matilda, wanted them to put on suits because she felt weird being the only one dressed-up during the group photos, after her impromptu wedding dress photo shoot.

    While I really like the photo above, mostly because of Charlie’s socks, I think I like the one below better…

    It is definitely random, but it is more of an honest reflection of who they were on that rainy Monday in the middle of January. I love dressing up but if I have to choose… I prefer honest reflections over imaginary projections any day.

  • A wedding dress for five dollars…

    Matilda got this wedding dress for five dollars from a thrift store in Maine last summer.

    When she gets married she wants to have an all vintage wedding

    And she wants to wear this dress.

    Matilda is in the second grade.

    The dress will have to wait.

  • Car time is quality time…

    I am going on a road trip with one of my most favorite people in the world this weekend and I am excited. Excited to have quality time with my friend, excited to get out of my bubble, excited to see some of my favorite photography friends I met in London, and excited to take lots of photos. A road trip is one of my favorite cures for photographer’s block. So away we go.

  • Gathering Color in Fairfax…

    Here are more photos for the book I am working on with Rebecca Burgess, the ecological artist and writer from Marin County. Her book Gathering Color will teach people how to create natural dyes, for their fiber arts projects, from native and non-native plants that grow in their region.

    In order for the book to have national appeal, we traveled to as many different geographic regions as we could. These are some of the plants growing in our region that Rebecca often uses for her own fiber art projects.

    I fell in love with the Prickly Pear.

    (please click on the photos if you would like to see the colors pop.)

  • My grandpa will always be my favorite Santa…

    Christmas has always been my grandfather’s favorite holiday and because of all the love he puts in to it year after year, he has made it our favorite holiday too. It is all about the traditions.

    Every year all 14 of us roll in from where ever we live and move in to their house for the week.

    Every year I wrap my presents for my family in newspapers, hoping maybe one year it will catch on.

    Every year my grandfather gives my grandmother at least one gift she doesn’t like.

    Every year my mom really likes to sing Christmas carols.

    Every year my vegetarian brother eats fake bacon and my grandfather refers to it as his eating disorder.

    Every year we wear crowns on our heads, say grace and eat lots of food.

    And every year, after is all said and done, we pack up our new loot and return to our respective states and my grandparents once again have their house back. But this year there was a small but significant change in tradition…

    This year my grandfather waited and let us decorate the Christmas tree.

    But it wasn’t an easy thing for my grandparents to watch. 65 years of marriage means they know how they like their Christmas tree to be decorated and they weren’t so sure we were doing it right.

    And although we enjoyed ourselves, despite our lack of Christmas tree decorating style, it was hard for us to let them sit there.

    It was breaking tradition. It was my grandfather taking a step back and giving away a little control. And the reason for his step back is a hard thing to think about. So we do our best not to think about it.

    Instead we are so grateful for every day and every tradition we have and we hope with all our hearts that it will all be exactly the same next year.

  • Walk it out…

    I have always had a dog in my life. Arlo is number seven.

    So I have been on a lot of dog walks in my life, but none as beautiful as here.

  • My horoscope said so…

    Most days I love what I do, but some days I feel like the lonely old peach tree that lives in my backyard that has been sprayed with herbicides. So lately I have been wondering if being a photographer is really the right path for me, or should I be something else… like a vet. (But I can only be a vet who works on healthy animals because just the thought of blood makes the room go black as I start to pass out.)

    And then, one week in December, as I was wrapping my Christmas presents with the North Bay Bohemian I read this…

    Libra (9/23-10/22) I’m hoping 2010 will be the year you do whatever it takes to fall more deeply in love with the work you do. I’d like to see you reshape the job you have so that it better suits your soul’s imperatives. If that’s not possible, consider looking for or even creating a new job. The cosmos will be conspiring to help you accomplish this. Both hidden and not-so-hidden helpers will be nudging you to earn your livelihood in ways that serve your highest ideals and make you feel at peace with your destiny. – Rob Brezsny, Free Will Astrology.

    I haven’t read my horoscope in a really, really long time, and I don’t know Rob Brezsney, but I feel like he read my brain. He heard my doubts and knew I would wrap my presents with his newspaper, so he threw his wise words in front of me and made me think. And he is right, this is the year I have to jump in with both feet or switch pools.

    I have been so incredibly lucky in 2009.

    I have had so many wonderful opportunities and jobs that have just landed in my lap, and I am grateful for each and every one. I have met amazing people, and been to amazing places, and learned so many amazing things. But this year, I am going to put myself out there and find documentary photography jobs that make me fall more deeply in love with the work I do. Jobs that tell stories about communities, about people making positive change, about people overcoming adversity. Stories that show what it is like to live in the year 2010.

    This is my new year’s resolution and it starts now. Here goes everything. (ps: I am going to need those hidden and not-so-hidden helpers so feel free to help away.)

    Happy New Year.

  • Come Get Your Dance On and Win Big…

    The Green String Farm Band is going all out, in their very best Christmas sweaters, at Murphy’s Irish Pub in Sonoma, tonight, December 20th, at 6 pm.

    It promises to be a really good time and very family friendly. Raffle prizes will be given away all night… which means you will have a chance to win your very own bottle of Arann’s homemade, super hot, Strong Sauce, Green String Farm Band t-shirts and CD’s… all of which make great stocking stuffers.

    Hope to see you there.

  • Thankful for plastic table cloths and fly swatters…

    …and for computers that don’t break down after my AppleCare runs out at the end of the month.

    Currently my computer is in the hands of the Geniuses of Corte Madera. Over the past three years, the life of my computer, I have been to the Santa Rosa Mac store so many times that I had to switch stores. It became too much like visiting all my ex-boyfriends. We would awkwardly acknowledge each other but at the same time avoid eye contact, because it was just too soon to be friends after the way it ended the last time.

    So all my fingers are crossed that the Marin Geniuses fix it up once and for all, and that I will be Genius free in 2010. Here’s to wishful thinking.