Joe Bauwens and Marybeth Flower are a married couple who wrote and photographed the award-winning book Piazza: Italy’s Heart & Soul. In 2007, the book won Best Coffee Table Book of the Year in an international competition.

Prior to becoming a photographer, Joe had a successful career as founder and CEO of a pharmaceutical company headquartered in Napa, California. Marybeth spent many years in hospital management. She is the co-founder of the Institute of Health and Healing, and producer of two national teleconferences on health care issues moderated by Ted Koppel.

The couple considers themselves accidental photographers. They learned photography in order to create their book. In the process of shooting the book they fell in love with photography. Currently they spend time photographing landscapes in the American West.

Marybeth and Joe have studied with some well known photographers including, Jay Maisel, Arthur Meyerson, Eddie Soloway, Jim Stanfield, and Carlan Tapp.

In addition to photography, they love to hiking, biking, skiing, traveling and cooking. They live near Sun Valley, Idaho.