A portrait each month.
January
I have had this in my head for a while. I have all these treasured family photos and little memories that have been passed down to me and I feel so lucky to hold them! I wanted to portray my curiosity in this photo of my lineage and my interest in just looking at these old photos. 
"We inherit from our ancestors gifts so often taken for granted. Each of us contains within this inheritance of soul. We are links between the ages, containing past and present expectations, sacred memories and future promise." -Edward Sellner
A hand written note by my second great grandfather of a funny story of him going into a Paris library to look up a word but he was made to jump through all sorts of hoops just to do it. A letter by my great grand-mere to her future husband, written to him while she was visiting Yosemite with her family. A journal in my Grandmere's handwriting opened to a page where she wrote about my grandpere's story of the gypsy trees in the California valley. Purses belonging to my great grand aunt, cameras that belonged to my grandparents and Dad. So many treasures that I will treasure for always! 
February
I shouldn't have taken up two of my ideas in one month, but they were so fun to try. The first one I put my light behind me and used a spray bottle to create this neat effect. I call it SOUL LIGHT.
The second one is my try at double exposure. I took a photo of myself in front of our window and then overlayed a recent photo I took of the sunset. I am also holding Dad's coffee cup which I treasure and use pretty much everyday. He is always on my mind and heart.

March

Sometimes things are hard to put into words, but I can try and show you how I feel...I guess that is why I like photography.

I took this a few hours after getting word that Dad had weeks, possibly days to live. If you don't know, he had been suffering for a while from Parkinson's and Dementia. It is hard to loose someone slowly, and I felt that part of me was fading away with him. I wanted to capture that somehow in an image. This was going to be my test shot to see if my idea worked. I had been thinking of it for a while, taking two images and putting them together to create one image, which involved using different settings and movement. I didn't have the energy to go back and try again. So here is the raw form of my idea, I think it perfectly shows my emotion of that day and the sentiment of my overwhelming emotions, in their raw form. 

Dad passed three days later.

April
"Art is the affirmation of life." -Ansel Adams quoting Alfred Stieglitz, in his Autobiography 
This month I tried to shoot through smudgy plexiglass and then I added a colored light. I couldn't choose which one I liked better, so three it is for this month.
I feel that this idea of mine is a bit of an extension of lasts month's idea. Especially in regards to the center photo.

May

My camera collection! Jared bought me two of these. I bought one online that says "MADE IN USSR" on the bottom and one I bought in a quant little antique store, the oldest one that was made in the 1940's. One of them was given to me by a second cousin that I recently became acquainted with. But most of these cameras were given to me by Dad. I only recently found out that he had them. Some of them were my grandfathers too which is always fun to know when I load them up with a roll of film.

More of Dad is in this photo. His photo is in the locket ring that I am wearing that was my grandmas. And strong memories are tied to the telephone pole insulators that are on the table. One is hidden. We would walk the railroad tracks by grandma and grandpas house and find them out there just laying on the ground. I have carried them with me throughout my life and those priceless memories as well.

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