• home
    • Wedding
    • Family
    • Branding + Headshots
    • Misc. Work
    • Pricing
    • Printing
    • FAQs
  • Bio + Contact
  • blog
Menu

Mary Ella Jourdak Photography

  • home
  • portfolios
    • Wedding
    • Family
    • Branding + Headshots
    • Misc. Work
  • info
    • Pricing
    • Printing
    • FAQs
  • Bio + Contact
  • blog
summer2016.jpg

Follow Mary Ella Jourdak Photography on Instagram

Today is #BourdainDay. I was lucky enough to wander the very tall, incredibly moody cliffs of Lima on this drizzly winter morning to reflect on the gifts I got from a man I never met - how very fitting, how very lucky I am. My wanderlust was sprouted from watching No Reservations as a young teen, my travel compass was forged years before I ever got my hands on my first passport. The hustle, the blood/sweat/tears/theft, the beartbreak, the moments darting across bustling thoroughfares, the hangovers, the language barriers, the gruelingly long layovers, the tiny golden connections of human interaction and the big breathtaking moments that're burned in to the back of my skull are all concepts I was as absolutely ready as I could possibly be for when I ran in to them at a breakneck speed. I can thank Uncle Tony for that. Anthony Bourdain was delightfully and doggedly human. He battled with addiction and mental health. He died by suicide. He was constantly curious. He was about as sardonic as you can get, but he was always undeniably himself. He was real, he was raw, and he put a few toes past the point of brutal honesty sometimes, but through everything, he maintained a solid sense of humanity and humility. Anthony had the ability to reach through the television and shake the shit out of people drowning in the quintessential American Apathy And Desperate Need For Convenience™ that convinces you Epcot's version of countries is more than enough. He opened so many eyes to the United States' complicity in war and famine, and the spoils of colonialism, how to shoulder this knowledge and to do better for it while shaking hands and breaking bread with the people directly impacted by our gains. He invited, no -- he challenged everyone to reach across yards and communities and states and countries and religions and genders to just sit down and open up over a meal. We are never too rich, too poor, too smart, too stupid, too creative, too broken, too whatever to get out in to this world and really, truly experience it. Put down your preconceptions and your pretension, and get going. Unless you're eating your steak well done, then you deserve all our collective scorn. (cont)
¡¡¡Felicitationes, Dani + Soum!!! What an absolute dream of a wedding.🔸🔸🔸 Lima, Peru
S A T U R D A YYYYYYYYYYYAY! 🔸🔸🔸 Kent Island, Maryland
I get to capture a lot of big moments in this job, like vows-on-a-mountain-top, on-one-knee-questions, profess-your-undying-love-in-front-ten-score-people big moments. but honestly? the ones that happen on a muggy Tuesday that you'll never remember the actual date of, the little benchmark between the monumental events might actually be more important - they're certainly the ones that stick with me the most. I know I was literally just talking about how beautiful it is to be reunited with folks I grew up with so I can document their growing families, but that seriously never gets old to me. what a joy to catch up with Danny and to see him absolutely slay the whole fatherhood thing. freakin' hashtagblessed, y'all. 🔸🔸🔸 Kent Island, Maryland
Things I'm absolutely obsessed with: this fam. I don't think I stopped laughing for moment photographing the Abdallas, unless it was to freak out about how gorgeous their babies/their home/the light/everything was. 😍 🔸🔸🔸 Kent Island, Maryland
Sandy toes and swingin' through through the breeze - these are the summer shoots I can't help but love! Cheers to the Levasseur family for barefooting it through the woods with me like total champs. 🔸🔸🔸 Kent Island, Maryland
dots2.jpg

All images are copyright Mary Ella Jourdak, c. 2010-2019.