hilary and her favorite mate gourd
emily and the 114 letters written to her by her by robert while he was on his mission
emily and the 114 letters written to her by her by robert while he was on his mission
Prized Possessions
20
Nov 08
alternate ending
since jessie and trevor couldn’t narrow their prized possessions down to just one thing, these are a few alternatives.
13
Nov 08
here are the prized possessions i photographed on tuesday.
jessie‘s boots are morgan freeman approved*
trevor‘s typewriter is just awesome
and the bible that cate‘s sister lucy is holding belonged to brigham young
*wondering about morgan freeman? as the story goes, jessie had just gotten the boots and was wearing them in portland when morgan freeman walked past and said imagine this in his voice:
“those are some real nice boots.”
30
Oct 08
a new prized posession and a call for volunteers
my friend and co-photographer lucy let me photograph her with her bear (whose name happens to be bear) last night as part of the prized possessions project.
over the next couple of months i will need to produce five more images for this series, so if any of you are interested in being photographed with your favorite thing, leave a comment or email me!
here is the first draft of my artist’s statement about this series…just in case you were curious about my theories about this.
thought the scriptures warn us to “lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven” (Matt 6:19-20), we all have prized possessions. For many, these objects are not “treasures” in the worldly sense–some may not even be beautiful–but we hold them dear because they tie us to a certain experience, a particular time, place, or person. in essence, it is not the object itself that is most important to us, but what the object represents. the experiences, not the objects, are what make life sweet, and are the only things we will take with us when we leave this world.
in this project, i’ve sought to catalogue not only prized possessions, but also the stories behind them. this has forced me, as well as my subjects, to think deeply about the objects that are important to us and the reasons we hold them dear.
in this project, i’ve sought to catalogue not only prized possessions, but also the stories behind them. this has forced me, as well as my subjects, to think deeply about the objects that are important to us and the reasons we hold them dear.
10
Oct 08
prized possessions
i’ve been thinking for a while about doing a series of photographs featuring people’s most valuable possessions. i know that it’s by no means a new concept, but my anthropological/ethnographic penchant seems to express itself in a kind of need to catalogue people. i just thought it would be really interesting to learn about which physical objects are most meaningful to people and why.
i shot these for a mini-theme in my digital class, but i think it may be an ongoing project.
i started by asking my boss, brad slade, and my co-photo-assistant braden duncan, what their most prized possessions were.
the criteria is this: it has to be a physical object, and it has to be truly important to you, like one of the things you would get if your house were burning.
after much consideration, braden decided that his prized posession(s) were his journals, which he’s kept religiously for who knows how long (if only i were that disciplined, my posterity might actually have something to read in 100 years).
brad chose his rolleiflex camera, which he has been using to photograph his beautiful kids since they were babies.
as for me, it’s hard to say what i would chose. after rescuing my hard drives with all my photos and my file with old letters and important documents and whatnot, i would probably run back into a burning house for either:
-the silver gilded hand mirror that my mom gave me, which she got from the antique shop that the grandmother of her good friend owned. the grandmother of the good friend was named marika, and is my middle namesake.
-a teacup that my godmother gave me. the story is that when she first moved to montreal from the iowa farm where she grew up, she made a friend. that friend gave her this teacup and saucer, which surprised my godmother because she thought that teacups always had to stay in matching sets. her friend taught her to embrace variety and maybe even discord, and i know that meant alot to her. she gave me the teacup over forty years later, the day her friend died.
my godmother is brilliant.
-the little cloissonne bird that my grandfather bought in india for his dad when he was young. he got it back when his dad died, and gave it to me. it’s beautiful. i’ll photograph it sometime.
what is your most valued object?