nine best. week three.

honestly, i didn't love this week's photos...

the assignment was to explore
the urban environment or natural landscape

and take black and white photographs
portraying the feeling i get when i'm there.

i picked Highland Memorial Park.

at first glance,

this park just looks like a park...

a relaxing field...

the headstones are not raised

the headstones are part of the earth.

i was drawn to the idea of nature being disturbed

by a natural part of life.

my project became personal

as i used mostly the markers of my family members.

the feeling i really wanted to portray was a sense of

remembering

respect

hope

the idea of continuing to teach our children

 about those that have left us...that we still love.

the first picture is to represent a new loss...

it's a new grave with lose dirt, marked only by a tiny pot of flowers.

remembering my grandfather

here's my sister teaching her son about his great-grandfather.

i love the idea of family roots here.

i only wish that i had gotten his whole name in that first shot

since it would have more meaning with more information.

remembering my uncle

i really wanted to show respect to my uncle in these photos,

especially since the thought of him being gone is still new in a lot of ways.

i was working with a new lens and blurred the background out too much in the second picture,

 but the grass was so dead, it wouldn't provide much contrast anyways.

remembering zachary

mykenzie will always know about zachary.

there's never going to be a time when we sit down and tell her our story...

because she'll already know it.

i love these pictures and are of personal value to me.

critiquing though, i'm annoyed that i cut the "z" out in the first picture...and i over-exposed her foot...

but i still love it.

this picture represents old loss.

i couldn't help but wonder if this person had any survivors left to clean off their headstone.

they've been gone for a long time, and it's very likely

that there's no one left to separate the earth from the stone.

i know they are remembered regardless...

afterall, i was there.

this wasn't an easy project for me. it was a blazing, sunny day and i messed up a ton of pictures and didnt realize it until i arrived home. i'm learning the most from my mistakes so it seems to be part of the natural process for me.

i took lots of other pictures throughout the week exploring the urban environment, too.

and i liked many of those pictures more but had to decide on nine that followed the same theme.

hope you enjoyed.

stay tuned.