What Remains

What Remains is an examination of the idea that a photograph serves as physical representation of a memory and the emotions revealed when these memories are confronted with current conditions. People often look to photography to capture moments in time that are to be remembered and looked back upon. Family vacations, life events, even the everyday interactions between friends and family are photographed, cataloged in albums and slide carousels then displayed with pride. Then they are called upon to retrieve and revive the memory of life experiences. I feel that the memories connected to these images though are typically happy memories and that my personal snapshots are memories of better times. Whether they are prints or slides these images are filled with nostalgia and for me, they conjure memories of times when my family was whole and life was more carefree. In reality that may not be the truth but those are the memories attached to these snapshots.

When looking back on places and people that had special meaning to you and shaped you as an individual, the memories are never one hundred percent accurate. Skewed to perpetuate positive recollections, we seem to bestow some kind of extraordinary power on these places. We hold them in a higher regard, especially if the person or place was particularly important to you. Because of this innate process of remembering things better than they were (especially as a child) when these people and places are revisited as an adult it can be quite devastating. This disappointment in the harsh reality of the situation is something that I am currently facing. For this series I went back to the houses I grew up in, the places I spent my summers, and houses of family members and photographed them as they are today. These images are combined with my personal snapshots that stand in as my memories of the same locations. Displayed together with the original snapshots, the snapshots have a surreal quality with their saturated colors and blurred aesthetic, compared to the straightforward, somewhat bland representation of the locations current state. The juxtaposition of the images shows that many of the places from my childhood and youth no longer exist the way I remember them, and that the snapshots are the only thing I have left. This phenomenon is something that we all experience as we grow older and realize that the things we once held so close, that were so monumental no longer have the same power and that we can never go back.

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All Images © Kristin Buck Photography 2011-2015