Photography, a balm for the soul.
You know when you’re a little sad or down in the dumps, or you’ve had a bad day?
Here: imagine arriving home late and still having to do a thousand things: making dinner, emptying the dishwasher, checking homework (or helping your son/daughter do it!) Did you know that a photograph could help you regain your smile?
Photography is for all intents and purposes a balm for the soul.: How?…let’s go back to your evening…you’re standing there not knowing where to start and suddenly your eyes fall on the wall across the street. You see the two toothless, freckle-faced faces of your children looking at you and you start to feel “warm on the heart.” You are relaxing! You suddenly begin to feel better, you are calmer, and a smile appears on your face!
This happens because everyone likes to reminisce about serene moments in the past, to look back on situations that brought you joy, to see the faces of people you love or your own in a quiet moment. Children grow up, things pile up, wrinkles come: you look back and miss those moments that while you were living you considered “trivial” because they were lived every day.
That is why I decided to stop these moments in images. The personal stories, without filters, Of women like me, like you. Stories of ordinary people, telling about everyday life. Different and unique families, telling the everyday, being parents, their home, their normalcy.
Normality. But what is normalcy?
For me, it is inclusion, the idea that everyone has a normality that is only his or her own, different from others. “Normality” is beautiful, in its being “imperfect”. All of us in our normality have small details that make it special, precious: snapshots of life, the #storiesandnormalities that make, for each of us, the everyday “extraordinary.”
Normality to celebrate love and family
I think “a family is a family,” as long as there is love, good: with babies, without babies, with “children” who are now adults, with two people of the same gender, with single moms and dads, and with pets. For me, family is home, it is the place in your heart/head where you find peace and serenity, surrounded by your nearest and dearest. My stories of normalcy stem from this very idea: “how good is it to be normal !?”
My shots are portraits of beauty, normality and the everyday .. I love diversity. I collect in my photos the essence, simplicity and habits of each person, to celebrate the uniqueness of each family in its most precious moments, the “normal”, everyday ones.
When I look at my children I think about how they are already grown up, how they have changed over time, how the talk, the demands, the dynamics in the home change. I am a mom, a very normal woman, and I juggle with all the burdens (and joys!) of everyday life. I like, when I have a minute to myself (rare!) to close my eyes, to remember how we were for example 10 or 15 years ago, how I felt, what expectations I had… If I went back what would I change?
I memories, however, are an important part of my life, sometimes they bring me some melancholy, but in the slight nostalgia, they make me proud and serene. This is what I mean by the phrase “balm for the soul.” Photographs of your family moments, of your serene moments, of a normalcy that made you happy (and still does!) caress your soul and thoughts. They are good for the heart.
