How Would Our Lives Change If We Photographed Them on Film?

Welcome

As a photographer, artist, and mother, I have the deep need to connect and tell stories.  

I see how life can be beautifully slow, colourfully loud. I seek out the pauses, the moments that quietly pass on by.  I feel all those memories and want to hold onto them forever and so, I do.  

I grew up in a world of cable TV, dial up internet and coming home when the street lights come on.  I felt the way we freely biked away our summer days and tobogganed all winter long.  Saturday nights were made for the video stores and family movie nights.  

I grew up with a film camera documenting our childhood moments, rolls of 24 image frames and out of focus moments.  Printed photos shoved into shoe boxes.  I am happy to be nostalgic, I am comfortable with being in that timeline and, I am seeking out all the ways for my daughters to look back with care, with love, with memories like I do.  I want them to feel those moments, own those memories and see us as us and not just people behind phones capturing every single thing they do.  

My genius hour project is How Would Our Lives Change If We Photographed Them on Film?  

I have the camera my dad photographed our childhood on, I want to do the same for my girls.  I want to create images that are true to life.  That shows the mess, the chaos, the honesty and the deep love of our family.  I truly believe our lives are over captured and that we can say more, feel more, see more, in one image shot on film than ten images from our phones. 

In a world where we are obsessing over posting, posing, and over sharing I will be seeking the moments that are made from truth, honesty, connection, and feelings.  I want to see this world as it really is.  

At the end of the project, I will have a collection of images that add up to their story as sisters.  I will put them in their own photo albums that will continue to be filled with images, letters, poems, art work all for them.  They will see themselves, they will see how I see them, they will see their story, all done in rolls of film and one camera.  

I believe we can tell a story in just one photograph.

                                  

*I have never posted my daughters' faces or names online and will continue to do so for this project.  I will be creative with how I tell our story but I have set that boundary of keeping their privacy.