nostalgia

For my final portfolio project, I wanted to focus on life in these strange times, spending a lot of time at home with my family and trying to find ways to function normally during this quarantine. The world has become an anxious place to live in, but there are some positives that have come out of this – one being that isolation has brought my family and I together and has allowed me to introspect on myself and my past a lot more than usual. We have been doing activities together that we often don’t have time to do in our regular schedules, like gardening, relaxing, and spending time with our pets. I decided to photograph what the best parts of this time have been like for me, not only just physically showing what we’ve done on our sunniest day, but also to represent how the good times make me feel and how they remind me of things I miss dearly.

           I wanted these photos to look like they were taken back in the day when everything had a warm haze and leaks of bright light, of course when using a DSLR the quality remains much higher than old polaroid or snap-and-shoot cameras, but with the help of a few different sunglass lenses as well as some colour grading in post, I was able to achieve something close to that nostalgic look. The reasoning for this aesthetic is not only because I personally like how it looks in conjunction with the specific subjects I chose for this series, but because it instills that sense of nostalgia and whimsical remembrance.

When among an abundance of plants and animals, I already feel as though I’m closer to a fantastical world, and it brings a sense of peace to me. There have been a lot of white butterflies in our garden the past week and probably the toughest part of these photos was waiting patiently and trying to capture even one of them – which luckily, I did. White butterflies signify good luck and positive changes, and they are also known in some cultures to be symbolic of loved ones from the other side looking over you. When my family and I work on our garden, it often feels as though it is an ode to those we’ve lost and my mother always says the butterflies are my grandmother saying hello, so realizing I got that snapshot in a series of photos about remembering the past fondly was special.

When I look back on my memories, it feels as if I’m stepping into a dream, and that is what I wanted this series of photos to feel like when viewing, too. I personally feel that I achieved my desired emotions in these photos and am very happy with how my final project turned out.