5 Years to the Day of my mother['s passing. I did these self ports in the attic of the house I grew up in in New Jersey. I was closing on the house on November 14th (Finally) after a 3 years of trying to sell it and 2 years of renting it. Long story short, it's been a stressful run throughout this entire period, mainly due to the financial responsibilities that came along with this and ending up with a property that should have netted me a nice chunk of money but the economy had other plans (for most of us) and I inherited a property when things started slowing down and in a time where things would continue to get worse as we all know.
I ended up with this idea when I was back early in the Summer and finished clearing out some belongings in the house but I had this picture frame of my mom back in Arizona. I did some self ports back then after I had did some photos of a long time friend who wanted some photos of herself done (before she 'gets too old' as she put it!) So after she left, I was still at the house and I took a crack at some self ports but had my flip flops on and a Yankees t-shirt ...I just felt it was lacking something and I wish I had my everyday boots on a plain t-shirt. It was when I got back to Arizona a week or so later I had the idea of using the picture frame with my mom and "Reflecting" on things with it. I was initially suppose to close on the house back in June 2011, but my Buyers had some issues with their bank, so they went with another bank for their lending, and the entire process of resubmitting the offer to the bank had to go through from step one again. Finally all things were approved once again and closing was supposed to be sometime by the end of October, But, with all this extra time I still had ownership of the house, I was able to fit in another trip back, something I didn't think I would be doing since I figured the house would close with these Buyers at some point in July or August, and I couldn't see going out of my way to head back to NJ from AZ, just to take this photo. All things worked out and I fit in another trip since I had no intention of going back for either Thanksgiving or Christmas, so, here's the vision I had put to imagery.
It really wasn't meant to be a sad thing :( It's just a Reflection of the last 5 years and everything associated with it - besides losing her - ending up with this house, couldn't unload it when it had equity and when I finally did sell it I had lost so much, invested so much energy and stress, along with reflecting on my life in that house since my parents bought it in 1978, our life as a family, and also my moms life in the more recent years. It's like the whole 34 years of that, but also the last 5 of it being the bigger impact in my life as most know. It was kind of important for me to take something out of the house before I closed on it 2+ weeks ago, and all I had left were the intangibles ...so I had this idea back in the Summer to photograph something like this. So I put my vision to something tangible - what you see here. So it's not supposed to be some ark depressed and sad thing, but it is all of the emotions that go into 34 years ...happy, sad, fun, angry, silly, pool parties when mom and dad went away, all the times and things I can recall. And what was I gonna so, smile? Most people know I rarely smile in photos because I believe I'm not photogenic ...let alone smile shooting self ports and running back and forth from the ottoman I'm sitting on to the camera to hit the button. So here's where one book ends ...and another begins...
