Conceptual Photography: Nostalgia
Over the summer, while helping my buddy Mike facilitate a conceptual photography workshop our students, I felt compelled to follow my own inspiration for a shoot. I was quickly approaching my 40th birthday I wanted to explore the concepts of aging and nostalgia by projecting old home movies over a self-portrait.
By varying the projected visuals and framing of the shots, I was hoping to capture something unique that elicited a forgotten memory.
In preparing the studio for my students, I invited my niece Iryss to model for the initial test shots. Midway through the shoot I handed her the camera and asked her to take some pictures of me.
She said she wasn’t going to be any good. I asked her why she would expect to be? She's eleven and had never picked up a DSLR before. I asked her to shoot 20 pictures and not worry about what they looked like. In trying to keep count, she lost her earlier inhibition and started to settle in.
I had no idea how the pictures would come out. I didn’t really care. This was a moment I hadn’t planned for and wanted to cherish.
The images we took besieged me. As she grows older, Iryss is looking more and more like me. Seeing her against the backdrop of my past forced me to reconcile, perhaps the for the first time, a feeling of loss for the child I won’t ever have.
When people ask if I have kids I say hundreds. Between being a teacher and being an aunt I get my fix. But there was something different about this moment, something beautiful and heartbreaking, and I’m okay having experienced both.
