For my final project I created a series of photos that represent young me and now me.  There are 12 total photos taken of me from 8 hours old to around 6 years old.  There are taken from all different occasions including: the day of my birth, strawberry picking, a tball game and my 5th and 6th birthday party.  I matched them up with photos I had taken of myself now recreating the poses of the original photos.

During the photos the hardest part to recapture was my facial expressions. I guess you don’t realize how enthusiastic or just plain emotional a child’s face is.  I could be doing a common activity and would have the most ridiculous expression on.  In each new picture I seem to be fighting off a laugh because I cant imagine why on earth I had this expression. Another difficulty was getting the pose right in each picture.  Every picture is very spur of the moment so it was difficult to get into the exact position.  Along with that the cloths I wore at 5 and 6 simply to don’t resemble anything I currently own.  Especially since the fashion would be over 18 years old so I did the best with what I had.

What was easy about the project was that it was laid out as to what I had to do. I didn’t have to make up some pose because there were already ready for me. It was a unique opportunity to recreate these photos because even though Im in all of them I have no recollection of any of it. They are poses that a normal adult would ever think about doing because they are so care free and fun.  I think what is so cool about this project is that Im the same person, in the same pose and almost same cloths but the cloths are distinctly different from one another.  You cant help but to stare and examine the differences between the two of them – in an almost wheres Waldo haze.

I thought it would be a cool effect to have a short video clip at the beginning of the segment. The video clip would be of me around 2 years old taking up all of the camera and my mom talking to me in the background. When the pictures wrapped up then I would have included another video clip of me reenacting the original scene.  I felt like it would have been a cool element to add to the total project but alas when I went to view the original tape my VCR broke – probably from not being used in 20 years. Visually this would have been a great element to add – bringing a life like quality to the project.

However, the pictures in the addition to the audio of the home video I think portray I sense of childhood that still lingers within everyone.  Seems now that I have lived two lives one which was far more care free and spontaneous than the other and recreating that shows how juxtaposed these lives are from one another.  Its interesting to look at life from where you came from to where you are now and how different the two are.  The moments in which these photos were taken had a certain purpose and I hope in the end to emphasize that life should always looked through an optimistic and youthful lens.