The genesis of this photographic exploration of family came from great tragedy. The patch like grids of photos are constructed from an archive of images taken by my mother, who recently passed away after a long bought with brain damage due to injuries sustained from a fall while vacationing in 2015. Since this incident, I had scanned over 4000 photos as a way to process my grief. When I would scan the library of photos I amassed, I noticed I had only about 100 pictures of mom.
One of the keywords I used in archiving the photos was “mom’s camera flash”. I had more pictures where you couldn’t see mom unless you looked in a window in the back of the image for a reflection of her and/or her camera flash. As a continued to sort and apply keywords to these photos, I also made inventories of other visual cues, such as pictures of my dad standing in the frame by himself, pictures of 1970/80’s motel rooms and rest stops on vacation, and other common occurrences.