Jamie Cope’s house is filled with pictures of people…pictures so beautiful you practically want to lick them. Or at least I do. They are all black and white, and all printed with exquisite attention to light and shadow. There is an amazing intimacy in her portraits, as though she’s looking INTO the people she’s photographing, and they’re letting her. I couldn’t help wondering how she did it. What were they talking about? How did she catch them being so much…themselves?
We sat on her couch one long, sunny fall day in Montpelier and talked for the better part of an afternoon–about photography, marriage, and eating tacos on Olvera Street in Los Angeles. Come listen…
The photographs we talk about in the interview are all featured below, in the order in which we speak about them.
Thank you!
A very special thanks to John Snell and Jamie Cope for allowing me to feature these photographs! Thank you also to Rob Spring.
This program is brought to you in part by a grant from WGDR, Goddard College and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Also big thanks to David Schulman for allowing me to feature a track from his new album, Raise It Up, which you can find here.
Maud Morgan, artist
Harold Edgerton, Scientist, inventor of the strobe, MIT
Giselle
President of Raytheon
Wisconsin Friends
Jamie Cope
LINKS
EPISODE MUSIC
| TRACK NAME | ARTIST |
| Ancestors | David Schulman and Quiet Life Motel |
E, This is my favorite…..LOVED it. What an enchanting lady. When I first saw Maud Morgan I had to double take…it looked so much like my beautiful Mother.
What a gem of an interview. I enjoyed hearing Ms. Cope’s insights about her artistic process as well as her thoughts about life in a different period of time. Her photographs are exquisite. Great work, Erica.
This too is my favorite.
Being of the same generation and having spent many years studying photography I can identify with Jamie Cope on many levels. Like myself, she was a housewife, who, it appears , took herself seriously as a photographer, once it became necessary for her to make a living at photography.I am assuming that she turned to photography in a serious way once she had divorced both her husbands and gained her “freedom”.
I wonder if the quiet and unobtrusive Hasselblad was always the chosen camera for portrait photography.
GOOD black and white photography is truly a treat in today’s digital world. Each picture is thoughtfully created from choosing the exposure to developing in a creative way all those tones of gray in the finished product. It’s intentional. It’s creative. It’s tactile. Too bad it’s a dying art form.
The interview itself was stunningly honest, moving. Truly a delightful twenty-or-so minutes. Thank you.
I would love to meet Jamie Cope one day should the occasion present itself.
Very inspiring to hear Jamie discuss her self discovery. So glad that Rosana recommended the interview!
Amazing. Affirming. Jamie Cope speaks of capturing someone’s soul in a photograph; Erica Heilman captures the photographer’s soul as she discusses her art and life; and this listener feels her own soul tugged by the work and words of both women.
Rumble Strip Vermont: thank you for the integrity, for the inspiration, for the “conversation that takes time.”
A bright and welcome way to tune in and turn inward as outside the Fall days turn dark.
What a wonderful interview! I have been privileged to be Jamie’s friend for over twenty years. The light that Jamie so cherishes illuminating her photography is not just external – it comes from within.
The Wisconsin friends make a heart.
And it’s nice to take a look at the photograph now knowing why the black & while is so soft.
Thank you Erica for this very inspiring interview.
Oh my gosh. You’re right. They DO make a heart. What a lovely observation….!