For the most part, in recent months, I'd gotten my joy from chasing little kids around and encouraging lovebirds to be sappy with each other. Catching a connection in my camera can be so addictive for me, and I have gotten fairly comfy with looking for connections between people in love. I've also found a certain bliss in surrounding myself with the silliness and purity of children. I know how to find my zones in these two places to an okee dokey extent, and I like to think that's because I'm very happily in love, and I enjoyed the freedom of being a little kid.
But family stories are not as often in my "zone". When there are that many people in one spot, it can be crazy to get all peoples involved to focus together, and to encourage everyone to blend and be sappy, silly, etc. I love my family, and I love Jay's family...and I often love just about every family I've ever met. I really, really enjoy families that are very close. You can feel it when you're around them, and you know how important they all are to each other. And I noticed this at Vickie's reunion.
Photography, to me, is more than a snapshot. I need to find connections in a photo or it's not fun for me. So how can I get this feeling from family hang outs? How can I expand on simpler connections, on a greater scale? This shoot sparked all of these questions, and made me realize some things...
I did really enjoy my shoot with Vickie's family. I think it was amazing to have an entire morning to focus on the ways people connect outside of sappy lovebird-ness. The fire I spoke of before was the reminder that family connects just as amazingly as lovebirds do, and that adults have the same pure joy as children...just in different ways. I plan on spending the next couple of years finding any way possible to get inside the hearts of a family, and then to document this in any way possible-interviews, photos, videos, etc.
I plan on doing a great deal of my exploring within my own family, and have already started my project with my mom, aunt and grandma. I'm hoping it continues to remind me of how great it is to have so much family around me, and that each connection I have is so intricately part of who I am. I'm just glad I figured this lesson out before I missed even more of my family.
As a result of this project, I plan on offering more inclusive coverage of family stories/trees. I really want to start making heirloom family albums for families, and would like to start doing so at a discounted rate to get my ideas worked out.
In my heart, each family will need several sessions to create a more thorough story. I'd like to spend a couple of months with each family, interviewing them, photographing their relationships, traditions and conections, and compiling their memories into hand made photo albums to be passed down through the generations.
I know this is a winded entry, but I have a ton in my brain right now. You can see why I've been putting off writing for a bit, huh? ;) And I still have 10 more biggie stories to share before I get to the small details...
Would love feedback on this. Please let me know if you'd like to be a part of this project, and I'll gladly give ya more details. You must have plans to see as much of your family as possible over the next year, and most of your family should be within 2 hours(ish) of the Parkersburg area (unless you want to put me up for a few days). And, you must really love your family.
Feedback, please. :)
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