Welcome to Paradise

Photography is the closest we have to time travel, and that’s where it holds its power. In this series, not only do the photographs transcend time, but the camera used to capture them too. After coming across a collection of my own childhood photos taken with my grandfather’s Polaroid SX-70, I was inspired to revisit significant places in my distant memory and recapture those places with the same camera.

Each exposure in this collection is two photographs taken decades apart superimposed on one another as one double exposure; the base being one of the polaroids taken by a family member of myself in childhood, and the overlay being one of the polaroids taken by me of an important location in my childhood memory. The result is a representation of my childhood that cannot be expressed any other way. The combination of photographic evidence and an expression of those memories that have elapsed 20 years creates not what it really was, but an accurate representation of what my mind remembers it as. Memory is never truth, especially childhood’s. They fade, warp, and embellish until they become feelings rather than events. This series is, simply, an artistic representation of those feelings. This project is a tribute to the kid I used to be, and my love for my sister.