Shadows Hanging Over Me

2020 was a difficult year for the world with Covid. I had the added bonus of having a life changing accident less than a week before the world shut down. While on vacation in Hawaii in February 2020 I slipped during a hike and fractured my ankle in three places (tri malleolar fracture). I will spare you the gory details and x ray images…..you’re welcome. But needless to say I spent the majority of the year either recovering from surgery or in rehab. So being stuck in my house was the least of my problems.

In 2021 I signed up for an abstract photography workshop online with the ICM Photography Magazine. It’s an amazing group and I encourage anyone interested in abstract photography to check them out. For the workshop we had to create a project of 8-10 images using a prompt of our choice.

My project is based on my recovery from the accident that forced me to explore the loss of my freedom, dependency on others, and dark emotions.  The lyrics from a verse in the song Yesterday, by the Beatles, struck a chord with me, and I used that as a prompt for this project.

Suddenly,
I’m not half the man I used to be
There’s a shadow hanging over me
Oh, yesterday came suddenly

I chose eight words/phrases to portray emotions that consumed my brain the last year.  All images incorporate shadows,  they were shot on my iPhone 11, and edited in Lightroom mobile.

Images from left to right (Click on the images to see them larger):

Broken - This is an image of a shadow of a fence along some concrete. When I flipped the image vertically it looked like my x-ray to me

Long Journey - This is an image of a pedestrian bridge in downtown Spokane. It was the perfect representation of the seemingly never ending journey I was on.

Drowning - This is a double exposure of my shadow on top of a swirling abstract of Mirror Pond in Spokane. I think we ALL felt like we were drowning in one way or another in 2020!

Trapped - This is a double exposure of a macro image of my eye layered on an abstract of my living room. Where I spent a LOT of time last year….

In A Fog - This is an abstract of shadows on my living room wall one evening. My brain was in a fog due to medications for several months

Starting Over - This is an image of my shadow against the living room wall. I saw the shadow with my crutches and it felt like a perfect representation of starting over again. This was after a second surgery in early 2021.

Reaching For Light - This is an image of some tree branches reflecting in Mirror Pond in Spokane. We are all reaching for the light at times aren’t we?

Glimmer of Hope - This is an image of my shadow the morning before my second surgery. I was walking by the door to my daughters rooms and noticed the shadow on the door. It gave me such a sense of hope when I sat down and saw the light coming in through the top of the doorway.

I am happy to say that the second surgery was a success and as of now ( July 2021) I feel like I am getting my life back and able to hike and enjoy many of the things I used to!

You can read more about my project and see the amazing work of the other students in this class by going to the ICM Photography Magazine website!