More recently I rediscovered some heirlooms of my own. That seems to have led me to feel really drawn to family and more specifically to women in families. This project has been developing and evolving over the course of several months.
I knew from the beginning that I wanted to focus on women and the interactions between the generations. Heirlooms seemed like an appropriate way to show how something old is still being cherished and passed down from one woman to another, bridging the generational gap and creating traditions. I asked family, friends and friends-of-friends if they had any heirlooms and if they were willing to let me photograph them. I wanted the object that they brought me to be the focus of each image but I also wanted to bring some of each person into the image. To do that, I incorporated each persons hands in some way. Personally, I think you can tell a lot about a person by looking at their hands. We all have unique finger prints. Some of us have scars. Some have smooth skin while others may have roughened and calloused hands. Some have fake nails, wear nail polish, or nothing at all. This list could go on for a long time but, the point is, our hands can show both our history and our personality.
I knew from the start that I wanted to shoot black and white and that I wanted to print big. Black and White came before color images, so again there is a transition from old to new. Shooting digitally also seemed appropriate in that I was using a newer technology to present older objects to viewers.