The pandemic has thrown a lot of things off — including the publication of the documentary photography project I did on the Dakota 38 + 2 memorial ride. About a year and a half ago, I got the opportunity to photograph the Dakota 38 + 2 Wokiksuye memorial riders.
It was a beautiful ride. I was guided by many Elders from the various Dakota tribes, invited in, and encouraged to create this photo essay. And I couldn’t thank them enough for their help, support, and kindness.
The issue of Incandescent was meant to be out at the end of March, but is finally on shelves! Freckle Magazine is another that this story can be found in (also meant for April), but the new publication date is to be announced.
This little video was made by another contributor, but is a fun preview of the magazine! If you haven’t heard of Incandescent, I highly recommend picking up a copy and checking out the beautiful work they do.
Although print is nice, you can also read the full photo essay on my website.
Over the last couple of years I’ve had the pleasure of doing the food and restaurant photography for Broders’ Restaurant Group. It’s been so much fun to go into their restaurant every week and photograph new dishes and all the exciting changes in their restaurants. I love being a part of a restaurant and being able to capture the life of the space.
Broders’ Pasta Bar is a cute restaurant specializing in homemade pastas. Every day they roll out beautiful pastas for their dishes. Plus the addition of seasonal ingredients, it is a place not to be missed.
Here is a collection of some of my most recent work for Broders’ Pasta Bar.
“While obtaining my Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Brigham Young University, I spent a lot of my time running away, finding a need to get out of Provo, then Utah, and then the United States.” – Artist Statement, Population 800, a documentary photography project by Christine Armbruster.
For many years I have been working on a documentary photography project many of you call my “small towns project”. Since moving to Minneapolis, I have been closing the doors on this project to allow room for others. It’s weird, it’s difficult, but it is time. To see the final project, head over to Dodho Magazine where it was recently published. Soon I will have everything up to date on my website, and eventually, an article including a review by James Swensen (art historian and professor at Brigham Young University) will be published in the Utah Historical Quarterly. When all those things happen, it will be announced here as well. In the meantime, check out the article on Dodho.
This past spring I was able to create the commercial food photography for the Cafe Zupas summer menu. It was a great shoot. We focused on the bright and vibrant colors of the summer foods. Watermelon radishes, beets, turmeric green tea, blackberries and basil. All the delicious flavors of summer topped with the earthy goodness of nuts and seeds. Creating the advertising photography for the Cafe Zupas seasonal campaigns are always fun. It’s a great team from the ad agency, stylist, and even a plaster team to create the surfaces. Cafe Zupas is expanding. So be sure to check out some of their new locations and try the menu before September 1.
Seasonal special include (as taken from the Cafe Zupas website):
Summer Garden Bowl with Turmeric Lime Vinaigrette: Spinach and arugula blend , organic tri-color quinoa, cage-free chicken breast, pearl mozzarella, baby beets, grape tomatoes, watermelon radish, Persian cucumbers, micro greens, toasted seed blend
Chipotle Turkey Bacon Sandwich with House-Made Chipotle Spread: Turkey, applewood-smoked bacon, tomatoes, cabbage slaw, pickled red onions, muenster cheese
Fresh Strawberries and Cream Crème Brulee: Topped with whipped cream, pistachios and a strawberry
Turmeric Lime Green Tea: House-pressed lime juice, raw clover unfiltered honey, 100% pure coconut water, organic green tea, fresh ginger, Indian turmeric, Persian cucumbers
Blackberry Basil Infusion: House-pressed lime juice, raw clover unfiltered honey, 100% pure coconut water, fresh blackberries, whole basil
Christine Armbruster is a photographer specializing in editorial style documentary work and commercial food photography in Portland. To see more work like this, visit her studio food photography portfolio.
In November and December I went to Kazakhstan. Partly to shoot personal work, partly for some serious amounts of alone time, and partly because I couldn’t see why not. I roved around from town to town, seeing what was interesting. I came across a town called Karaganda (Qaraganda) and fell a bit for the idea of it. Industrial in the middle of nowhere. So I photographed a bit and then came home and worked with Allied Feather and Down to create an essay for them. Eventually this piece went up on their social platforms. I’ve posted bits and pieces on mine as well, but here is the full article.
“Kazakhstan wasn’t exactly built for tourists. It’s remote, visas are a roadblock, and most people can’t even spell it. If they can spell it, the likelihood of being able to point it out on a map is uncommon. I found two native English speakers, and one told me I was the first Western woman he had seen in months. In my opinion, a perfect location to travel.
In Karaganda, the only “tourist attraction” is the Karlag Gulag. Gulags were the Soviet work camps, usually in Siberia and other equally remote, daunting places. Famous for death marches through harsh climates to get there. And yet, Karaganda was so remote and so harsh, that nearly a million people were exiled here. The gulag is a ways out of town and fenced off. Arriving only to allow you to be a voyeur and let your imagination do the rest of the tour. The whole experience is so untouristic that I didn’t even know it existed until after I left.
Astana is known for it’s futuristic architecture.
Baikonur is home of the Russian space program.
Aralsk has a disappearing sea of salt.
Almaty is where apples originated.
Karaganda is home of _______ ? Mining? One of the largest gulags? Bad air quality? Being the exact middle of nowhere?
In America one might say your car was parked in BFE, you left your wallet in East Jabip. In Soviet days, if you car was far away, your grandma’s house way outside of town, they would say it was in Karaganda.
When you live in a city that is considered to be the literal middle of nowhere, there comes a specific quality about it. Or maybe when you live in a city with such bad air quality from mines and factories, you become depressed yourself. The air is thick with pollution. So thick you can taste it. The snow is black. The landscape dismal. The loneliness of the remoteness settles in a bit deeper here, to the bone nearly.
You taste it when you step outside. You taste it in the water. You take it in deep as you sleep. I think if I were to cry here, my tears would be black. I bought toothpaste and it was black. I am sure it is just as black inside these thin walls of houses close to the factories as it is outside of them. The inside walls weep the same black sludge that the fallen snow quickly turns to. The literal middle of nowhere, and a black sky to match the black name.
It’s lonely to be so remote. Even in a city of a half million. There seemed to be extra people sitting alone on benches, people perfectly spaced far apart so they would walk alone. I checked into the hostel I was staying at and was given a key. The workers left to never be seen again and I was the only guest for days. I suspected weeks. I walked down empty streets, went to an empty mega super market, and returned to my temporary empty home to make Thanksgiving dinner.”
Black toothpaste
The train from Astana to Karaganda
Pipes outside an apartment complex outside of town
A girl traveling from her new home of Astana to see her parents in Karaganda.
An empty compartment on the train
A women walking in the city center of Karaganda, still laced with Soviet murals
Wild dogs outside the coal factories skirting around Karaganda.
A boy and his sled.
The black skies of Karaganda. No world pollution index has listings for anywhere in Kazakhstan.
Morning light in my empty hostel.
Kitchen interior
A man burning trash in a new suburban housing development.
A snowy road leaving Karaganda
An elderly man waiting for the bus
Storage outside of a grocery store in town
Massive Kazakh flagpole
Furthest building to the left, four floors up is where I stayed.
Sometimes I am good at showing recent work, but other times I am better at showing personal work. This past photoshoot for Kinfolk Magazine felt like a perfect combination of the two. It was a welcomed marriage of personal and commercial work. A great example of how I blend my documentary and commercial styles. The day after I came home from Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, I was asked to go to Sundance Mountain Resort for a photoshoot. Never before had I spent so much time doing personal work and then immediately jumped into a commercial shoot. Especially a commercial shoot with as much freedom as this one had. It felt like a continuation of the light and dark study that I had been exploring for the previous month of travel, all using natural light to photograph the food and interiors of the resort. Luckily, the client wanted the exact mood I had been focusing on every day for the pervious month and it felt like the perfect collaboration.
To see the entire story, you can check out the article on Kinfolk. Or to see more collaborative work I do, you can visit my website. Especially this past food and travel project with the Waldorf Astoria and James Beard Foundation.
Christine Armbruster is a Portland natural light interior photographer. She makes documentary images for commercial clients focusing within the food and restaurants. She works both on location and in the studio to create strong imagery to tell the stories of the places she photographs. To see more of her work and how she blends her documentary style with commercial clients, please visit her website.
This past summer I got to go on an incredible journey– horseback riding in Mongolia. We began the journey at the base camp of Horse Trails Mongolia. Off the airplane and straight into a ger. In fact, we got off the plane in the tiny Ulaanbaatar airport, and didn’t see any sign of civilization for nearly a week after that. A quick mini-market stop on our way to Gorkhi-Terelj National Park, and that was about it. It was just us and our horses. We entered the park and loaded up our horses for the trek.
Horseback riding through the Mongolian steppe was one of the most enjoyable things I have ever done. I know that is a bold statement. But I haver never had such freedom on a horse before. I’m not even crazy about horses. It was incredible though to be given this wild animal and the ability to go wherever we wanted. Fast, slow, up a hill, through a river, whatever.
There was endless landscape. Every corner we turned, there were endless valleys, endless mountains. Climbing to a peak, you look down into six different valleys to choose from.
The horses were a bit wild. A bit like the American Mustang. Kind of tamed, but also they very much had a mind of their own. It made the riding a bit dicey at times, but overall it was enjoyable. Wooden saddle and all.
We stated in gers (Mongolian yurts), we camped in tents. Food was eaten by a river or with a nomadic family. It wasn’t always pretty, it wasn’t always comfortable. But somehow, it reminded me of why I love traveling. Something about the remoteness, the roughness, the bizarreness of the place. It was a catalyst for Kazakhstan. A big reason why I felt the need to travel alone this winter. I am excited to go back to Mongolia this summer and see how it makes me feel the second time around.
All images taken on Kodak Portra 160 or Kodak Ektar 100.
Christine Armbruster is an Utah editorial photographer. She travels to world creating commercial images for clients.
This last month I was featured in Cada Dia un Fotografo! This publication is a catalogue of editorial photographers and fine art photographers from around the world. A Spanish language blog, each day they feature a new photographer. Last month, my editorial photography was highlighted. Cada Dia un Fotografo wrote a little feature on me and linked back to a handful of other places I have been published.
The image they featured is from a series I did eight years now (Happy New Year!). This series was called “Mortar Shells and Cigarettes”. Taking place in Sarajevo, I spent over a month wandering the streets of the beloved city. Documenting life in the 15 year anniversary of the war ending. To see more of the work from the series, head over to my website to check out the photo essay. And be sure to head over to Dada Dia un Fotografo to see this feature and many others!
Published at: 02:12 pm - Wednesday December 20 2017
I have a new gallery of editorial photography on my website! There are some old photos and some new ones on there. Images from past adventures as well as some work for editorial pieces I’ve done over the last year or so. It will be a blend of some lifestyle photography, editorial photography, and outdoor photography. Let me know what you think! Feedback is always welcomed.
I have a little calendar that I work on bigger goals throughout the year, piece by piece. Revamping my website was a goal of last year and I just put it on the calendar for next year. Be looking for more updates, new galleries, and some personal work!
“On Signagi’s main street, wines glitter like jewels in their makeshift bottles — soda, water, even mustard.”
Nearly two years ago, writer Jen Kinney and I went to Georgia and Armenia in search of a story. We weren’t sure what kind of story, or what we would even find there. Ultimately we stumbled upon one of the oldest wine making traditions in the world. Growing over 500 varieties of heirloom grapes, and harvesting them to make homemade wine in the basement. It is a tradition that dates back for years. In an attempt to create government wine programs, the USSR made homemade wine processing illegal. Many people shut down their home wine cellars by filling them in with soil, only to be recovered years later, full bottles and all.
“Christine stands, lost in thought, eating a clutch of grapes. When she’s exhausted all the dull little globes, she flicks the spine into the apple trees outside our guest house door. It hangs in the air a fish skeleton, and lands out of view beneath the heavy boughs.”
During our trip to Georgia and Armenia. We found stories, we made images. And then we did not know what to do after that. I have done bits of work for MisAdventures in the past, and they contacted me to see if I had any editorial food photography I could include in their printed magazine. Each issue they have a food section. Sometimes featuring recipes, sometimes featuring food adventure stories. In the summer 2017 issue, our story was featured.
“Christine and I, frequent travel partners, are tired and full with the traditional Georgian dinner they’ve served us: soapy white cheese that squeaks in our teeth, salt-encrusted fish, a salad of cucumber and tomatoes too spicy for us to finish, a bowl of grapes for desert. Now our host points to a tree hearty with tense green balls the size of eggs. He pinches off two and crushes them together against his chest until they burst their shells and give up two pale, green, thumb-sized brains. “America, America,” he says, and we eat the ripening walnuts. This young, they are not just rinsed with bitterness, but bitter through and through.”
It was a bit of a strange story. It was a bit of a strange trip. Jen sums it up beautifully (all quoted lines in this post are from her). She explores tradition and what is feels like to be a foreigner in a place you know nothing about. I will post a handful of images below. Some where used and others were not. But for the words, you will have to find the article in print.
“Then, wandering the streets of Telavi at sunset, a woman gestures to us from the second-story balcony of a tilting, wedding-cake house. “Coffee?” she offers. We follow her… [the family] smile at us gently, like we are strays they have not yet decided to keep.”
Christine Armbruster is an editorial food photographer in Portland where she makes documentary images for commercial clients. She does a lot of editorial food photography for various magazines, cookbooks, and food companies. To see more of her work, and other editorial projects around the world, please visit her website.
