PHOTO PROJECT: The Evolution of a woman

This project is a tribute to  the strongest woman I know; my mother. For as long as I could remember my mom has hated taking pictures. She would shy away from every camera. As a result I never had any photos of her to hang in my room.Last year I discovered an album with these photos and I was floored. It was a totally knew version of my mother I had never seen. These pictures show the progression from adolescent to womanhood. At 19 I am entering a stage of womanhood that she will guide me through. I am just now learning about and seeing her past which propels me to shape my future in light of her. I wanted to recreate these photos in honor of my mother just as she has recreated herself through her children.

My mother picks her favorite color flowers in her childhood home Pensacola, Florida which is also where my parents met and where I was born.Finding a field of flowers in Jacksonville, Florida was almost impossible. The metropolis is a definite change of pace from the city my mother grew up in.We are opposites in this aspect; my mother doesn't mind a simple town with a quaint dreariness about it,while I want the hustle and bustle of an urban jungle. It works out because she is all the garden I will ever need.

My mother poses with her best friend during their senior year of high school.

My best friend and I return to the breezeway of our elementary school the end of our senior year.

And guess what's in my pocket! All things come full circle. 

My absolute favorite picture of my mother. This candid was taken in the storage room of her first job.

Here, I am in one of my favorite thrift shops in Jacksonville. 

Recreating a candid loses some of the truthfulness  behind the image, but I can only hope I do her justice. I can only hope to be as beautiful and positive as my mother. Maybe one day my daughter will recreate images of me and the legacy of queens will live on.