I had an odd moment of feeling how life moves in spirals.
I started doing photography when I was 15, fall of 2010. I did a private photo workshop in VA with Dr. Parv Sethi and learned a crazy amount about how to capture images in two hours. We ended up working in a beautiful abandoned building with permission from the owner (an old farmer who lived in a little house next door). I took mostly closeups of bed springs, hooks, and other interesting details.
Winter of that year we were driving though the mountains of PA and told my mother how much I wanted to photograph the ice wall that had formed on the cliff; the problem we faced was giving a sense of perspective of how big it really was. My solution was to put someone in a white dress so they both showed the size and added to the image appearing as almost part of the ice. That winter we got a wedding dress from a thrift store but never managed to get back to the ice before it melted.
Flash forward six years, I am taking a road trip to VA to see my family and get a tattoo that I wanted since I was a very small child. I pack one of the four wedding dresses I own for photo projects. While on the six hour drive with two of my closest friends we start talking about photo session ideas and it ends with a post being made on my home towns Facebook ( yes my home town is small enough to have a Facebook) asking about where the best ice forms are at. Next thing I know it’s a day later and I am standing on the side of a steep mountain highway with a model. I am taking the very image I always dreamed of getting using the same damn wedding dress that I had bought for $10 from a thrift store to do the shoot six years ago.
That night we start talking about the old barns and building in the area and agree that we should do a photo shoot in one of them. The next morning I am knocking on a door belonging to a farmer when he opens the door. I smile professionally. “Hello my name is Coriander I photographed the abandoned house on your property about five years ago, I don’t know if you remember me but I was wondering if I could go in again?” after a long pause he responds with a chewing tobacco inflected “Yah.” “Okay well thank you so much I appreciate it.” “Yah.” Thus showing the differences between myself, a photographer working out of DC, and the farmer culture of Virginia. I ended that day working in a building that had not changed in six years taking some really splendid shots using the colors and architecture of the building to add dynamic to my models.
I logged onto Facebook to post the photos of the ice shoot that night and Facebook wanted to remind me that I did an ice shoot six years ago on the same date.
Thus life seems to move in the spirals of thought; the same ideas and images re surfacing as I change and grow as an artist. I am amazed by both the differences and similarities that show in the last six years of my work. I can’t wait to see what reflects again in the next six years.