We are photographer Jerry Redfern and writer Karen Coates, partners in work and life. We didn’t always like each other, but we’ve always respected each other’s talents.
We met at The University of Montana while working at the student newspaper. We tolerated each other then—barely. Our first journalism jobs took us to the same small daily paper on Wyoming’s windswept plains.
(← That’s us in Paris, 2008)
There, we collaborated on stories ranging from gun violence to rock climbers at Devils Tower National Monument. We worked hard. We decided we might actually like each other.
When Karen left for graduate school in Oregon, Jerry landed a job at a nearby paper. Jerry drove the U-Haul while Karen drove his car—with a broken heater. She must have liked him by then, or she never would have made that trip.
The next fall, Karen signed up for a semester in Vietnam on a collaborative exchange. The impending distance made the heart grow cranky. Jerry asked her the ultimate question, and she said yes.
(← That’s us in a Lao taxi, 2008)
After a crazy-fun summer wedding on an Oregon ranch, Karen took a job at The Cambodia Daily and Jerry followed, shooting freelance for Agence France-Presse, The New York Times and other news organizations throughout the region. Since then we have collaborated on stories all over the map—child labor in Cambodia, the 2004 Asian tsunamis, human-elephant conflict in Sri Lanka, Hmong loggers in Vietnam, the world’s hottest chiles in Nagaland and most recently, unexploded ordnance. That project will soon be a book documenting the long-term
effects of the U.S. raids on Laos, where American bombs still kill and maim people nearly 40 years after war. We have spent much of the past decade living and working abroad. But in 2007, we bought a little fixer-upper house near the Rio Grande in New Mexico.
(← That’s us in Bagan, Burma, 2002)
We’ve gutted every room, torn up carpet and installed new floors, and survived a run-in with a rototiller and a tree (Jerry). When we’re not punching holes through walls (intentionally) and drilling through wires (unintentionally), we’re working overseas and forgetting the unfinished room on the south side of our little hacienda. It’s a fine balance, we think: home, work, life. Our best results stem from the times we patiently watch, listen and note the world around us. Ordinary life lends something extraordinary when people take time to look and think—especially in this age of tweets and apps. It’s a rhythm that has become more than a job. It’s the pace of life we have created together. graduate school in Oregon, Jerry landed a job at a nearby paper. Jerry drove the U-Haul while Karen drove his car—with a broken heater. She must have liked him by then, or she never would have made that trip.
The next fall, Karen signed up for a semester in Vietnam on a collaborative exchange. The impending distance made the heart grow cranky. Jerry asked her the ultimate question, and she said yes.
(← That’s us on the Sandakphu Trail, India, 2007)
After a crazy-fun summer wedding on an Oregon ranch, Karen took a job at The Cambodia Daily and Jerry followed, shooting freelance for Agence France-Presse, The New York Times and other news organizations throughout the region. Since then we have collaborated on stories all over the map—child labor in Cambodia, the 2004 Asian tsunamis, human-elephant conflict in Sri Lanka, Hmong loggers in Vietnam, the world’s hottest chiles in Nagaland and most recently, unexploded ordnance. That project will soon be a book documenting the long-term effects of the U.S. raids on Laos, where American bombs still kill and maim people nearly 40 years after war.
We have spent much of the past decade living and working abroad. But in 2007, we bought a little fixer-upper house near the Rio Grande in New Mexico.
(← That’s us on the Hiawatha Trail, Idaho, 2011)
We’ve gutted every room, torn up carpet and installed new floors, and survived a run-in with a rototiller and a tree (Jerry). When we’re not punching holes through walls (intentionally) and drilling through wires (unintentionally), we’re working overseas and forgetting the unfinished room on the south side of our little hacienda. It’s a fine balance, we think: home, work, life. Our best results stem from the times we patiently watch, listen and note the world around us. Ordinary life lends something extraordinary when people take time to look and think—especially in this age of tweets and apps.
It’s a rhythm that has become more than a job. It’s the pace of life we have created together.
(← That’s us in the middle of nowhere, Texas, 2011)