Saturday, July 19, 2014

Photo Brings Housekeeper Back To Life

This story is quite interesting, it shows the power of photography. A found photographs brought this confederate white house housekeeper back to life 150 years after she disappeared.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/07/19/image-found-confederate-white-house-housekeeper/

Tintype of white house housekeeper Mary O'Melia made around 1865
This is what I hope to do with my portrait projects, give a lasting life to my subjects. If you make a strong photograph it lives on sometimes long after the person in the image has passed. In a way a photograph is a form of immortality and a strong portrait that is collected by a museum might live hundreds of years, possibly longer. If you do your work right you are giving your subject a form of life after death.

The man below is Khun Oo-dom I photographed him in 2011. When I went back to give him his photo in 2012 he had passed away, this and other portraits I made of him might be all that is left to show he was alive. The power of photography, you got to love it.

"Ain't Photography Grand!"

Khun Oo-dom 70, Klong Toey slum, Bangkok 2011