“Memory plays a major role in the construction of my pictures. Objects and places that I photograph are usually drawn from past memories and experiences. When I capture the environment, I am conscious and deliberate in my decisions to frame it not just to have a record per se but for the pictures to be viewed as something that holds meaning. This in turn encourages viewers to actively engage in their own recollections.”
-Stella Kalaw
I draw a lot of inspiration from Kalaw’s imagery, as well as her writing. In her series Family Spaces she speaks about the loss of the meaning of family as she has assimilated American life, having immigrated here from the Philippines. The images in this series, being presented in succession to another, give the idea that they are all one home, when in fact they are lives lived in 4 different time zones. In this series she presents her struggle to accept the separation of her family. She photographs personal belongings in an aesthetic that suggests solitude and emptiness.
Cubao focuses on spaces of her grandparents’ house and home. Much of the same concept applies here, as well as the same aesthetic. Even having spent a lot of time with her grandparents, Kalaw had very few memories of the space. Though, once visited, many memories she had forgotten resurfaced. A House Remembered, again, follows the same concepts of family and home. Kalaw photographs her home here in the U.S. and writes about her son’s experiences compared to her own when she was a child in the Philippines and how she regrets her son cannot grow up the same way.
Because I feel like my images that I posted on the critique blog of my most recent individual meeting are a little too ambiguous, I am still considering using a documentary style to give those images space. As Shannon pointed out, this imagery may become too mysterious—they somehow need to be grounded. Again, I’ve been researching photographers who work in a documentary style and focus their aesthetic on capturing things having to do with the home and the family. I pay close attention to lighting, color and detail, all in my effort to explore other ways of photographing spaces familiar to me so that my work does not become repetitive.
http://slashmaraud.blogspot.com/2008/09/interview-with-photographer-stella.html
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